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Article And they thought Papers were Rude [Note: The chapter “What makes a target: politicians and abuse on social media” from the edited collection “Anti Social Media?” was reprinted in the British Journalism Review under the title “And they thought papers were rude.”]

Binns, Amy and Bateman, Martin Available at http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/25348/

Binns, Amy ORCID: 0000-0002-9173-3108 and Bateman, Martin (2018) And they thought Papers were Rude [Note: The chapter “What makes a target: politicians and abuse on social media” from the edited collection “Anti Social Media?” was reprinted in the British Journalism Review under the title “And they thought papers were rude.”]. British Journalism Review, 29 (4). pp. 39-44. ISSN 0956-4748

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CLoK Central Lancashire online Knowledge www.clok.uclan.ac.uk @TheBJReview And they thought papers were rude Amy Binns and Martin Bateman

Politicians thought social media would allow them to speak to voters without journalists skewing the message. Then the trolls moved in

Although often at odds, journalists and politicians share many of the same problems on social media. Both are obliged to maintain a public profile and to remain cheerful and polite, no matter how gross the provocation. Both struggle with the competing demands of professionalism and likeability – often a zero-sum game. Both seek trust and respect on platforms notorious for dishonesty and no-holds-barred disdain. Both may also be seen as authority figures, part of the establishment, and thus fair game for cutting down to size. Pugnacious criticism of politicians has always been a part of the system. When Lord Bew chaired a government report on intimidation of MPs, partly in response to the increase of abuse on social media, he said at its launch: “Politics is a rough old game, and it should be a rough game.” MPs’ postbags have always contained abuse; but social media has allowed a level of personal hostility that has disturbed politicians and commentators. It has also removed traditional filters that protected politicians. Secretaries used to bin the most vicious letters from the “green-ink brigade” a colour the unhinged seem to favour – but now every insult comes on phones. While the hatred and threats aimed at politicians, particularly on Twitter, had been an issue for some time, the death of MP in 2016 threw it into sharp focus. She had been subject to abuse on Twitter in relation to her Remainer stance. Although her killer had not sent threats himself, he researched right-wing groups online and repeatedly shouted “Britain First” as he stabbed her. 39

©Binns & Bateman; DOI: 10.1177/0956474818816860; [2018/12] 29:4; 39-44; http://bjr.sagepub.com 40 British Journalism Review vol.29 no4 December 2018 why can’t you it?’Female ignore MPismurdered: ‘An unexpected tragedy.’” activist: “Female daily MPsget deaththreats:‘It’s andrape justonline, on the MP than the hundreds of othertweets received. of on theMPthanhundreds a day. Also, theylikely althoughrare, are tomake amuch impact greater of messages significant number forhigher-profile receiving MPs hundreds MPs. This isnottodownplay theirsignificance. This maya stillbe alltweetsestimate threateningtweets sent to at roughly 0.1percent of least 500examples). at found thesewere thesoftware totrain (we toorare adataset of require threats but dataset. We initially of intendedtocreateaseparate category theoverall unremittingly hostile place, avery threatsare smallpartof person ratherthantheactionorpolicy. keywords, such asprofanities. We definedhostilityasinsultsaimed at the politicians. This reliable is a more methodthansimply searching for peoplesendto this dataset,theemotionbehindmessages tomeasure hostile orthreatusingbespoke software, using machine learning trained @ in, such as“ theemotion,buthasbeencopied in which theMPmay of notbethetarget vote a disgrace, are confusing tweets senttomultiple accounts, such as:“ complete tramp”. Have youthe person – such himself?! seen ? as “Dress He’s a whichmessages may usetheMP’s namebutwill notnecessarily beseenby the MP’s (unlessthesenderhasalready stream beenblocked). This excludes mentions usingtheMP’s tweets seenby theMPsthemselves, we categoriseonly tweets sentas election. after thegeneral below relatetotweets sentbetween March 18andJune days 11,2017,three 2016.We stillcapturing data, are buttheresults MPs from theendof jeremycorbyn”. Secondly, althoughhostile behaviour at directed women receives most Based onthenumbers we found duringmanual categorising, we The have results beensurprising. First, althoughTwitter isseenasan These We categoriseonly tweets which mentionasingle MP. This removes We thetweets categorise usingsentimentanalysis software. To focuson measuringhostility, tweets sentto As ameansof we millionsof stored The links were summedupinatweet by BethMurray, asocialmedia @ messages weremessages then categorisedaspositive, disagree, neutral, @ southernrail yousouthernrail ruiningmy are life @ jeremycorbyn #labour #hero”. It also removes tweets @ username. Thesetweets are that will appearin @ theresa_may you @ theresa_may

could have dissipated some of this. could have dissipated someof non-SNPrepresentatives conductors foronlinehatred.Greaternumbers of Labour andtheConservatives representatives actingaslightning of major spikes. hostility.long-term Incautiouspublicortweets appearances in resulted high-profiletheir feed: jobsandcriticising Jeremy Corbynresulted in hatred as a proportion of people who receive of percentage the greatest hostilitybecomeclearer whenstudies. we The majordrivers lookat the of MPs, female it’s actually abuse in line with of publicity regarding smaller Others Disagree Hostile DIFFERENCES BY PARTY: Others Disagree Hostile DIFFERENCES BY RACE ANDGENDER: byaffected highprofile MPs, particularly ChukaUmunna andDianeAbbott. non-white MPs, may andthesefigures bedisproportionatelynumber of women receive thanblack more men.However, isarelatively there small men receive significantly more abuse thanAsian women MPs, while black received. total messages Asian counterparts, bytheir female of percentage tweets they receive).the disproportionate number of removing and Theresa May from the database (owing to coverage,press ourdata show between little difference thesexes after bin collection). Not all are still MPs.bin collection).Notallare abackbencher toppingthe charts owingcould have toamissed of theresult about alocalmatter. constituentsangry adozen This hostility from half who barely are active onTwitter, but who may receive asmallspike in We MPs(todiscountthe many ranked thetop100most-messaged MPs Scottish politicsalsoproved aggressive, more with thesoleelected Although thismay seemcounterintuitive, given themuch greater Jewish andwhite maleMPsreceive marginally negativitythan more

26% 23%

female male 64% 13% Conservatives White 59% 66% 15% 59% 25% 16% female male 64% 53% 23% 22% 13% Asian Labour 13% 21% 24% female male Liberal Democrats 20% 61% 19% Jewish Black 28% 53% 18% 64% 14% 21% female 66% 20% 13% SNP 66% 13% 21% male 62% 24% 14% 41 British Journalism Review vol.29 no4 December 2018 42 British Journalism Review vol.29 no4 December 2018 THE 11RECEIVINGGREATEST PERCENTAGE OFHOSTILITY WERE: @theresa_may @jeremycorbyn @BorisJohnson @HackneyAbbott @timfarron @jessphillips @DavidLammy @ChukaUmunna @Jeremy_Hunt @AngelaRayner @michaelgove @nick_clegg @CarolineLucas @johnmcdonnellMP @JamesCleverly @Ed_Miliband @YvetteCooperMP @EmilyThornberry @Anna_Soubry @tom_watson TOP 20MOST MESSAGED MPSBY SINGLE@MESSAGE hostiletweets. total numbers of supporters. BorisJohnson, however, highly scored and forbothpercentage also aheavy longconversations Twitter with userandhasalotof positive tweets andneutral generally andare highprofile. MsPhillipsis hostiletweets, they alsoreceivein addition alotof toreceiving alotof below,graph mid-table butare when ranked by percentage. This isbecause, hostility,Phillips, who known are toreceive alotof appearhighonthe tweets. avery andJess busyfeed. These were usually partof 22 23 23.5 23.5 24 24 24.5 24.5 27 29 32 % % % % % % % A different picture emerged when looking at high numbers of hostile hostile when emerged picture A different looking at highnumbers of

% % % %

Chris Leslie Michael Gove Wilson Corri Ian Murray JavidSajid Neil Coyle Osborne George David Mundell Simon Danczuk Jeremy Hunt Boris Johnson 0 0

Conservative MP, newspaper editor SNP MP, faced allegations ofwrongly usingfundsto Conservative minister andBrexit campaigner MPandCorbynenormousspikeLabour critic, after a Conservative minister andBrexit campaigner Labour MPandCorbynLabour critic MP,Labour Corbyncolumnist for critic, right-wing Scotland’s MPat soleLabour that time Conservative minister Scotland’s soleConservative MPat that time Conservative minister support hercampaigns support newspapers radio interview 50k 50 k 100k 100 l

Hostile k l MARCH 18-JUNE 2017 12 Disagree 150k 150 k l

Neutral &Positive 200 200k k have aconversation about theMP’s –aconversation faults which will his/herown friends, alongwith the MP. insomeof tags They may then theMPactually without seeingthethread. usernames any expectation of such asBritain’s soleChineseoriginMPAlanMak, now to donotrespond side-doors topower have abuse. Many, beenclosing asMPsgrow weary of andstaff. secretaries These constituents tocircumvent the gatekeepers of orbroadcasters.press Itwas alsoanopportunity for campaignersand Social mediawas seenasawayreach forpublic audiences to figures without This ishow we prove we “goodthinkful”. are belonging tothegroup. This isthe21stcentury’s Two Minutes’ Hate. their abusive tweets, they prove theirorthodoxy for andcredentials anopposingviewpoint in and community-building. Byincluding anMPof conversation. Bizarrely, virtue signalling. of abuse isbeingusedasaform build trust and community between feeling the other participants in the theseconversations is not necessarily the MP, todistress point of butto theirconversation, The butnotthetarget. real The MPisthesubjectof using the others. The sendermay justbe them seeingthetweet amidstthousandsof appear intheMP’s timeline. Butthesendermay have noexpectation of assume senders are seekingassume sendersare toinsulttheMP, butsomepeopleuse examined tweets with single hostility?This research theMPstrulyare targets, orjustthesubjectsof It isalsonotably anissueforLabour MPswho criticiseJeremy Corbyn. But Twitter,by publicity onandoff forpeoplewith soincreases higherprofiles. party groups, andisnotaproblem foronly oneparty, orrace. gender Itisfed notenoughineachThere are grouptodothis. not made an embarrassing television or an incautious tweet. appearance anti-Corbyn, active onTwitter without courtingpublicity andwho had who were neitherfront bench norhighprofile, neitherstrongly pro- nor provide adefinitive analysis,groups these we would needMPsfrom each of bench jobsat thistimewere predominantly heldby white males. To and race, as high publicgender profiles have ontraffic, and an effect front These figures should not be read asdisprovingThese shouldnotbe figures links between hostility, One result of the hostility online has been the return of gatekeepers. of the hostility online has been the return of One result belonging byAs predicted Orwell, hatredisusedtocreate asenseof essentiallySuch are threads conversations between like-minded people. In many hostilecases, thesenderisdiscussing amajorpublic event and However, we cansay that hostilityonTwitter and crosses demographic @ username as a hashtag, rather than intending a direct insult. asahashtag, insult. ratherthanintendingadirect username @ usernames whichusernames show inthe MP’s We feed. @

43 British Journalism Review vol.29 no4 December 2018 44 British Journalism Review vol.29 no4 December 2018 uplands of Instagram. uplands of pushing outmediareleases. taking Othersare conversations tothepeaceful inquiries via Twitter. For them, Twitter has become another tool for and Society, This isaneditedextract from Central Lancashire. Bateman, seniorlecturer at the University of The sentimentanalysis software usedinthis research was developed by DrMartin CentralShe teaches print Lancashire. anddigital at the journalism University of spent10years asanewspaper reporterDr Amy before Binns enteringacademia. that permanentlycould seeregulation curtailsabuse. speech free every unregulated timethey pick uptheirphones, weworst of politicianscontinue toseethe most offensive orcriminalcontent.Butif moderators andbuildingsentimentanalysis tocutback onthe toolstotry and EUbodies. Facebook hiring extra andothersocialmediacompaniesare US “contrition tour”hascontinued this year with infront appearances of way that newspapersheldresponsibleforeverything are they publish. to make contentonline, inthesame socialmediacompaniesliable forillegal candidates. Theresa May hasendorsedthis. legislation Italsorecommended intimidating parliamentary which of offence anelectoral recommended skinned who orarrogant leastlikely are about tocare criticism? public Would life? thisleave ourmostimportantinstitutionstothethick- socialmediahasalready beenpartially lost. the key benefitsof situation, thismeansoneof reasonabletoadistressing these are responses include abuse, describinghersystem as“peakblock, peakmute”. Whilst messages. Jess Phillipshassaidshefiltershertweets foranything likely to OthersuseTwitter’smonitor herfeed. own toolstoblock hate-filled to for 48hoursafteratelevision sheleaves appearance: ittoherstaff UK politicians are nottheonlyUK politiciansare oneslosingpatience. Mark Zuckerberg’s LordBew’s onintimidation, report of themajorconcerns This was oneof Could online hostility make sensitive more to enter people reluctant looksOne prominentpoliticiantoldusshenolonger female at Twitter available £19.95from Richard Anti-Social Media?The ImpactonJournalism @ abramis.co.uk orat Amazon.