NIGEL Farage triggered almost six times as many abusive Twitter replies than the next most-replied to candidate during the recent EU election campaign, a study revealed.
The Brexit Party leader sparked almost six times as much abuse as former BBC journalist Gavin Esler, who ran as a Change UK candidate and was the next most-replied to, according to the research from Sheffield University.
Tweets by the MEP hopefuls generated an “unusually high level” of abusive replies and the findings showed Farage was the most interacted with candidate in the build-up to the May elections.
Twitter posts by candidates from the Brexit Party, Change UK, and Ukip generated the most abusive replies, according to the findings.
The research found that the Brexit Party attracted the most engagement on Twitter out of all the political parties in the run-up to the election, with their candidates receiving as many tweets as all the other parties combined.
The study, led by Professor Kalina Bontcheva of Sheffield’s Department of Computer Science, revealed that many abusive replies to posts by Farage were actually abusive towards other politicians – mainly Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn.
In contrast, abusive replies to Esler were primarily aimed directly at him – triggered by his use of the phrase “village idiot” in connection with the 2016 Leave campaign. Researches found that the more divisive the terms used – such as “betrayal” or “traitors” – the more likely the posts were to generate abuse.
Abusive messages in replies to Farage and other Brexit Party candidates largely centred on disagreement with the UK leaving the European Union.
In contrast, MEP candidates from the Conservative and Labour parties were not hubs of polarised, abusive discussions on Twitter.
Professor Bontcheva said: “What these findings, unsurprisingly, demonstrate is that politicians and parties who themselves use divisive and abusive language, for example, to brand political opponents as ‘village idiots’, ‘traitors’, or as ‘desperate to betray’, are thus triggering the toxic online responses and deep political antagonism that we have witnessed.”
The study also analysed overall engagement with UK MEP candidates across the different parties on Twitter. The research found that Farage received more interactions than any other candidate on Twitter ahead of the election, receiving more than double the replies of Andrew Adonis of the Labour Party, who received the second-highest number.
However, the research has found that it has been impossible to establish how much of this engagement is truly organic, as flagged in related studies.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here