Hundreds of abusive social media posts sent to MSPs

A pilot programme established by the Scottish Parliament following the murder of MP Sir David Amess in October 2021 has revealed that hundreds of social media posts sent to MSPs were abusive and threatening, leading to their referral to Police Scotland. The findings from the programme, which ran from mid-June 2023 to the end of March this year, were described as 'sobering'. Each MSP who took part in the trial received an average of 12 abusive posts, all of which were reported to the police. Although there were no direct threats during the trial period, the abuse generally targeted protected characteristics such as gender, sexual orientation, and race. In total, over 8,000 comments were identified as abusive, with 461 of them being considered to have crossed the criminal threshold. The majority of the abusive posts, 6,621 in total, were directed towards members of the SNP, while 592 were aimed at Scottish Tory MSPs, 501 at the Scottish Greens, 282 at Labour, and 114 at the Lib Dems.