Senator Lorraine Higgins has posted comments on her Twitter page claiming that there is a "concerted effort" by members of Sinn Féin in Derry to use social media to "intimidate" her.
The Labour MEP candidate also posted an image of data analytics from her Facebook page.
Newstalk's Digital Manager Aidan Coughlan says questions must be asked about the reliability of such metrics: "It seems a bit strange to me - for one, the location is listed as ‘Derry, Galway’, and given the location of Ms Higgins’s constituency, I’d be more inclined to focus on the ‘Galway’ aspect.
"Location data can often throw up oddities like this - and this is backed up by the fact that the number for ‘Derry, Galway’ is larger than the total number for the United Kingdom.
"Finally, as you can see in the screengrab, these numbers refer to ‘People Reached’ - that is, people who saw her posts - as opposed to people who sent her comments, which would come under ‘People Engaged’, or people who Like her page. Both of these metrics would be far more relevant to establishing any such pattern, particularly as her page is set up so users can’t comment without first Liking the page.
"All in all, it looks like Ms Higgins has got this one wrong."
Comments made by Labour Euro candidate Lorraine Higgins on her Twitter page earlier this morning
