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It's not just on the ground, in person — candidates are getting hate online too. The non-partisan Samara Centre for Democracy is trying to track it. The Centre is running a tool called SAMbot, which tracks toxic tweets received by candidates and parties on Twitter.

The Samara Centre recently partnered with Areto Labs on a project that tracks the tweets received by incumbents who are running for re-election, to find out how toxic these tweets are and who is receiving them.

“People simply are not participating,” said Sabreena Delhon, executive director of The Samara Centre for Democracy. “The ugliness that manifests online and that can then translate into real life is numbing for some people."

Sabreena Delhon with the Samara Centre for Democracy tells 680 NEWS that a bot they created analyzed over half a million tweets about the federal election in the first couple weeks of the campaign. The centre found that more than a quarter of the analyzed tweets could be labelled as ‘toxic.’

The study found that a whopping 20% of all tweets related to Canada's federal election campaign trail so far have been "toxic." On top of that, 7% were labelled as "severely toxic," which means they included profane language or even threats.

The Samara Centre for Democracy and Areto Labs teamed up to create a bot that could analyze tweets that mention political party leaders and incumbent candidates during the 2021 campaign.

“People are leaving politics, not entering politics and steering clear of the political conversation because of toxicity online. It is a barrier to civic engagement. What is your party’s response?”

Research done by the Samara Centre for Democracy found that more than a quarter of the 350,000 Twitter comments sent to incumbent candidates during the first week of the federal election campaign were considered toxic.

Une récente recherche réalisée par le Samara Center for Democracy a révélé que plus du quart des 350 000 commentaires sur Twitter envoyés aux candidats sortants au cours de la première semaine de la campagne électorale fédérale étaient considérés comme « toxiques ».

Sabreena Delhon, executive director at the Samara Centre for Democracy, said the research, which looked only at Twitter, found 20 per cent of the tweets were on the low or middle end of a “toxicity scale,” containing insults, sexist language or rude comments.

We take a look at a new project out of The Samara Centre for Democracy that tracked toxic tweets during the federal election campaign.

Guest: Sabreena Delhon - Executive Director of the Samara Centre for Democracy.

A new project from Samara Centre for Democracy and Areto Labs is tracking toxic tweets aimed at incumbent candidates and political party leaders during the federal election. Lana Cuthbertson, CEO of Areto Labs, explains how 'Sambot' works.

Sabreena Delhon of the Samara Centre for Democracy tells us about their 'sambot' which will allow them to track toxic comments on Twitter with respect to election campaign.

We'll get the lowdown on a new project tracking toxic tweets aimed at incumbent candidates and political party leaders during the Federal election.

Sabreena Delhon, Executive Director, the Samara Centre for Democracy tells guest host Pat Kaniuga about a new project that tracks toxic tweets aimed at candidates during the Federal election.