Ascertain whether targeted candidates actually see misogynistic attacks

Determine whether misogynistic tweets directed at female candidates are read by the candidates themselves, filtered by their social media teams, or ignored, to clarify the interpretation of changes in candidates’ tweeting activity as reactions to such attacks.

Background

The paper analyzes over 10 million tweets mentioning 445 self-declared female candidates in Brazil’s 2022 elections to examine whether online misogyny is associated with reduced online activity by candidates.

A key limitation acknowledged by the authors is that they cannot verify whether the targeted candidates themselves saw the misogynistic content, whether intermediaries filtered it, or whether it was ignored. This uncertainty complicates causal interpretations of observed changes in candidates’ tweeting behavior following spikes in misogynistic mentions.