SAMbot Federal Election: August 29-September 5, 2021

More than 1.1 million tweets tracked to date. On September 4, SAM analyzed the one-millionth tweet sent to the 300 incumbent candidates and party leaders that are being tracked.

Unless otherwise stated, this report provides the findings from analysis of the 389,516 tweets sent from August 29 to September 5.

Weekly Snapshot

Key Findings

• Monday, August 30 saw the most online toxicity this week, while Saturday, August 28 remains the most toxic day to date on the digital campaign trail.

• Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau continued to receive the largest number and proportion of toxic tweets of all candidates tracked, with 22% labelled likely to be toxic.

• 16% of tweets that Conservative Party Leader Erin O’Toole received were labelled likely to be toxic.

• 14% of tweets that NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh received were labelled likely to be toxic.

Of the 1,128,539 tweets analyzed from the beginning of the campaign to date (Sunday, August 15 to Sunday, September 5):

• 47,810 were labelled as containing sexually explicit content
• 86,221 were labelled as containing identity attacks
• 101,926 were labelled as containing threats
• 103,076 were labelled as containing profanity
• 208,302 were labelled as containing insults

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Unless otherwise stated, tweets sent from Sunday, August 29 12:00 ET to Sunday, September 5 11:59 ET were analyzed in this week’s report.

SAM is tracking 210 male incumbent candidates, including Justin Trudeau, Erin O’Toole and Jagmeet Singh, 88 female incumbent candidates, and two party leaders who did not have a seat in the last Parliament (Annamie Paul and Maxime Bernier). Review the full list.

For more detailed methodology, visit our FAQ page.

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How to cite: The Samara Centre for Democracy, SAMBot Federal Election: August 29-September 5, 2021, (Toronto: The Samara Centre for Democracy, 2021), www.samaracentre.ca/articles/sambot-federal-election-weekly-report-august-29-september-5-2021.

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