Scottish trolls worst in UK for racist, gay hate tweets

SCOTLAND tops the table of the worst areas for racist and homophobic tweets in the UK, a study says.

Trolls in Midlothian and East Ayrshire post more of the hate messages than anywhere else in the UK, according to the research by anti-bullying campaigners.

And the scale of homophobic abuse from Dundee on Twitter is matched only by the Welsh county of Denbighshire.

An incredible 53.8 per cent of tweets in Midlothian were termed racist, with East Ayrshire second in the league of shame on 49.72 per cent, ahead of Dundee on 39.53 per cent, compared with a Scottish average of 26 per cent.

The study, by charity Ditch the Label and social media monitoring company Brandwatch, looked at 19million tweets from the UK and US. Dundee’s ‘score’

‘Troubling view of online abuse’

for homophobia was 24 per cent compared with the Scottish average of 8.9 per cent.

Next came Moray (16.73 per cent), Highland (15.55) and Aberdeenshire (15.04).

Users in East Dunbartonshire were least likely to use homophobic language (1.58), followed by Stirling (2.07) and Shetland (2.94). Tweeters in Glasgow and Edinburgh are among the most tolerant – seven times less likely to post an abusive rant than Twitter users in Dundee.

Glasgow had a hate speech ratio of 3 for homophobia, with Edinburgh’s 3.59.

The Outer Hebrides, where 98 per cent of citizens are white, had the fourth highest percentage of racist messages at 33.33 per cent. Least racist were Shetlanders (6.67), Orcadians (14.29) and Borders people (18.58).

Brandwatch’s Edward Crook said: ‘The data paints a troubling view of online abuse, but we should remember that social networks are also a powerful source of support for those experiencing bullying.

‘It is also important to note that this study does not aim to vilify any groups.’