Online abuse and threats towards politicians have become a significant concern in the Netherlands, like in many other countries across the world. This paper analyses gender differences in abuse received by Dutch politicians on Twitter, while taking into account the possible additional impact of ethnic minority status. All tweets directed at party leaders throughout the entire year of 2022 were collected. The effect of gender and ethnic minority status were estimated for six different linguistic measures of abuse, namely, toxicity, severe toxicity, identity attacks, profanity, insults, and threats. Contrary to expectations, male politicians received higher levels of all forms of abuse, with the exception of threats, for which no significant gender difference was found. Significant interaction effects between gender and ethnic minority status were found for a number of abuse measures. In the case of severe toxicity, identity attacks, and profanity, female ethnic minority politicians were more severely impacted than their ethnic majority female colleagues, but not worse than male politicians. Finally, female ethnic minority politicians received the highest levels of threats compared to all groups. Given that online abuse and threats are reported to have a negative effect on political participation and retention, these results are particularly worrying.

翻译：网络辱骂和威胁对政客的影响已成为荷兰乃至全球多国面临的重大关切。本文分析了推特平台上荷兰政客遭受网络辱骂的性别差异，同时考虑了少数族裔身份可能产生的额外影响。研究收集了2022年全年所有针对政党领袖的推文，通过六种不同语言维度（毒性、严重毒性、身份攻击、污言秽语、侮辱及威胁）评估性别与少数族裔身份的作用。结果显示：男性政客在除威胁以外的所有辱骂类型中均承受更高水平攻击，而威胁性内容方面未发现显著性别差异；在部分辱骂指标中，性别与少数族裔身份存在显著交互效应。具体而言，少数族裔女性政客在严重毒性、身份攻击及污言秽语方面较主流族裔女性同行受害更严重，但未超过男性政客。值得注意的是，少数族裔女性政客遭受的威胁性内容在所有群体中最为严重。鉴于网络辱骂与威胁已被证实会削弱政治参与及留任意愿，这一发现令人尤为担忧。