New Zealand General election: Female politicians received 200k abusive tweets, says report

Over 200 thousand abusive tweets were directed at female candidates during the New Zealand General election, a report published in The New Zealand Herald has revealed on October 30. The kiwi nation held polls on October 17 and witnessed robust campaigning from incumbent Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her electoral rival Judith Collins.

According to Parity Bot, an AI bot tasked with finding and combating the abusive tweets, picked up more than 200,000 'toxic' messages, with most directed at Ardern, Leader of the Opposition Judith Collins and MP Chloe Swarbrick. Speaking to the Daily, Jaquiline Comer, a creative technologist working to bring the technology in New Zealand, said that the bot detected “toxic” tweets by processing messages received by the candidate through machine learning models.

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As per the report, the bot was programmed to specifically focus on female candidates to "raise awareness that women candidates tend to face greater toxicity on social media.” Therefore, there was no data on the number of abusive comments received by male lawmakers in the nation. 

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Ardern wins second term

Ardern won her second term as New Zealand's prime minister on Saturday as her Labour Party secured almost 50 per cent of the total votes polled in the election. Ardern on Monday once again thanked her team who worked behind the scenes for six weeks to ensure her victory. 

While addressing her supporters at the Auckland Town Hall after winning the election, Ardern thanked her party colleagues and volunteers for helping her secure the win. She also thanked the voters from both urban and rural areas who voted heavily for the Labour Party in the election.

Ardern further told supporters that she would work to build an economy that works for everyone. Ardern was rewarded in the election for her successful handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw the country miraculously flatten the curve, reporting less than 2,000 cases and 25 deaths. 

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