Quantitative Dataset
Alongside the qualitative monitoring of pages and posts, the report analyzed public engagement with
election-related posts through a large dataset of social media comments.
This component examined community reactions to political content featuring women candidates,
allowing the research to trace how harmful narratives are reproduced and amplified in public
discussions.
The dataset includes:
Arabic Context: 62 posts, collected from 42 different accounts, generating 15,933 comments in Iraqi
Arabic
Kurdish Context: 58 posts, collected from 23 different accounts, generating 17,453 comments in
Kurdish
This produced a total dataset of 33,386 comments.
Each comment was manually annotated by the research team using a classification scheme
developed by the Safa Project to identify different forms of online gender-based violence including
violence and abusive discourse. (see table 5)
The quantitative analysis was conducted separately from the qualitative analysis with the aim of
mapping broader public attitudes and patterns of engagement within election-related online
discussions.
Accounts list selection:
Account selection was guided by a clear set of pre-established inclusion criteria designed to ensure
relevance, reach, and public influence. Pages were selected on the basis of their level of political
activity, including the regularity with which they published content relating to elections, government
performance, policy, or public debate, and their engagement in political advocacy, criticism, or
mobilisation. High engagement was a key criterion, assessed through reactions, comments, and shares
relative to follower count, as well as the presence of active comment threads and rapid content
circulation. Pages were further evaluated for their capacity to shape narratives, generate trending
discussions, or be cited by other pages, media outlets, or public figures.
The sample encompassed official or widely recognised candidate pages, party and coalition pages used
for political communication and mobilisation, and media outlet pages belonging to television
channels, radio stations, news websites, and journalists. The analysis also incorporated satire and
political commentary pages, which shape public opinion through humour, mockery, and critical
framing, as well as pages affiliated with tribal and religious actors, whose social and religious authority
enables them to mobilise audiences and influence political attitudes.
Social media monitoring covered 103 Facebook pages, six X accounts, and 51 TikTok accounts,
reflecting the central role of these platforms in Iraq's political communication ecosystem. The analysis
was supported by the Meta Content Library, which assisted in identifying, contextualising, and
verifying political content and engagement patterns related to the elections.
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