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Six MPs were subjected to abuse in 10% of tweets sent to them, while 34 received none. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA
Six MPs were subjected to abuse in 10% of tweets sent to them, while 34 received none. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

MPs received 190,000 abusive tweets in three months, study finds

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Researchers found one in 20 tweets sent to MPs were abusive, with two-thirds from male Twitter users

MPs received almost 190,000 abusive tweets over a three-month period, research has shown.

One in 20 tweets to MPs were abusive, analysis by BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, and the independent thinktank Demos found.

They looked at tweets sent to or from a UK MP between 9 May and 18 August last year.

Analysis of the exchanges found 188,000 were abusive, with almost two-thirds of the tweets from accounts registered to men.

The abuse peaked on the day of the EU referendum result, 24 June, and the day Boris Johnson pulled out of the Conservative leadership race, 30 June, the report stated.

#Brexit was the most commonly occurring hashtag in abusive tweets, while #BorisJohnson and #VoteLeave ranked second and third.

Party leaders, deputy leaders and prominent campaigners in the EU referendum were among the most frequently abused MPs, according to the research.

The analysis also found that 34% of the abuse was “unqualified”, as the tweets did not contain any additional information about why it was sent.

Six MPs were subjected to abuse in 10% of the tweets they received, while 34 received none.

The report blamed the “anonymous and ‘safe distance’ nature of social media platforms” for allowing “abuse to be handed out far less respectfully than it would usually be if delivered face-to-face”.

In a foreword to the report, David Evans, director of policy and community at BCS, called for “a cross-party allegiance to work with us and existing social media platforms to improve their offerings, and establish a purpose-built platform to facilitate meaningful and effective political engagement online”.

He added: “Online political engagement is here to stay, and issues around how well it is serving our political process will only increase with time. The time to give proper consideration to how the situation can be improved, making IT better for society, is now!”

There has been growing pressure for social media companies to tackle hate speech.

In March, Yvette Cooper, chair of the Commons home affairs committee, told executives they had a “terrible reputation” among users for failing to act on reports of abuse.

At a committee hearing she cited examples of tweets that made violent threats against public figures which remained online 24 hours after she had reported them.

One of the tweets referred to Angela Merkel, saying she was “a bitch that needed a bullet in the head”. Others included such references to the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, and Gina Miller, who brought the Brexit case against the government.

A report published by the committee in May said social media companies should face fines of tens of millions of pounds for failing to remove extremist and hate crime material promptly from their websites and accused them of putting profit before safety.

The report said: “Social media companies currently face almost no penalties for failing to remove illegal content … We recommend that the government consult on a system of escalating sanctions, to include meaningful fines for social media companies which fail to remove illegal content within a strict timeframe.”

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