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Diane Abbott calls on Twitter to clamp down on racist and misogynist abuse

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Diane Abbott has called on Twitter to be a lot quicker in clamping down on racist and misogynist tweets.

The shadow Home Secretary made the remarks after a damning study found that thousands of abusive tweets disproportionately targeted black female politicians and journalists.

Research by Amnesty International found that black women were 84% more likely than white women to be mentioned in abusive tweets with one in ten posts mentioning black women containing abusive or problematic language.

Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott speaks during the Labour Party annual conference at the Arena and Convention Centre (ACC), in Liverpool. Picture date: Tuesday September 25th, 2018. Photo credit should read: Matt Crossick/ EMPICS Entertainment.

Diane Abbott has urged Twitter to do more to clamp down on racist and misogynist abuse (Picture:Matt Crossick)

Ms Abbott received almost half of all abusive tweets sent to female MPs, according to a separate study published by Amnesty in 2017.

Responding to the latest findings she said: My staff still spend a considerable amount of time removing and blocking abusive or threatening posts from social media.

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Overwhelmingly the abuse is of a highly offensive racist and misogynist character.

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I have always felt that this type of hate speech can lead to violence, and Twitter has a responsibility to shut these accounts down a lot quicker then it currently does.

She also called on Twitter to put in place an option to delete offensive comments once an account has been blocked.

Example of a tweet defined as "abusive". These examples contain explicit and threatening messages (Picture: Amnesty International)

The study by Amnesty International showed abusive tweets disproportionately targetted black female politicians and journalists (Picture: Amnesty International)

Example of a Tweet defined as "problematic". These examples contain explicit and threatening messages (Picture: Amnesty International)

Example of a Tweet defined as problematic (Picture: Amnesty International)

For its latest study, volunteers for Amnestys Troll Patrol crowd-sourcing project analysed 228,000 Tweets sent to 778 female politicians and journalists across the political spectrum in both the UK and US.

The report found that 7.1% of tweets to women in the study contained abusive or problematic language.

Labour MP Jess Phillips has also spoken out about harassment on Twitter after a wave of violent abuse was launched against her in May 2016.

Only a month after she spoke out, parliamentary colleague Jo Cox was murdered by far-right fanatic Thomas Mair.

Labour MP Luciana Berger this week tweeted screengrabs of numerous anti-Semitic messages she had received after voicing her position on a vote of no confidence in Theresa May.

(Graphic: Amnesty International) Amnesty International's study shows that as a group, women of colour, (black, Asian, Latinx and mixed-race women) were 34% more likely to be mentioned in abusive tweets than white women.

Black, Asian, Latinx and mixed-race women were 34% more likely to be mentioned in abusive tweets than white women (Picture: Amnesty International)

But abuse is not only directed toward politicians on the left.

A University of Sheffield study of tweets between 2015 and 2017 published last year found that male Conservative MPs had seen the most abuse during the period, while female Tory MPs saw the largest increase in abuse.

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Conservative MP Nadine Dorries said that colleagues had been advised by Parliaments Health and Wellbeing Service to close down their Twitter accounts due to the angry messages they were receiving from members of the public.

Kate Allen, Amnesty UKs director, said: Its clear that a staggering level of violence and abuse against women exists on Twitter.

These results back up what women have long been saying – that Twitter is endemic with racism, misogyny and homophobia.

The Twitter Inc. logo is seen behind an Apple Inc. iPhone 6s displaying the company's mobile application in this arranged photograph taken in New York, U.S., on Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2016. Twitter Inc. is changing its timeline to display popular tweets first, instead of the latest posts, a long-anticipated step thats likely to anger its most passionate users. Twitter is scheduled to report quarterly earnings results following the close of U.S. financial markets on February 10. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Twitter says it is investing in technology and tools to enable it to more proactively identify abusive tweets (Bloomberg)

She continued: The company must take concrete steps to properly protect womens rights on the platform.

Vijaya Gadde, legal, policy, and trust and safety global lead at Twitter, said: Our abusive behaviour policy strictly prohibits behaviour that harasses, intimidates or silences another users voice.

We are also transparently investing in better technology and tools to enable us to more proactively identify abusive, violative material, to limit its spread and reach on the platform and to encourage healthier conversations.

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