Samantha Townsend says one person told her she should be dragged out into the street and shot.
Fat-shaming, homophobic attacks and threats to burn down your house are just some of the online abuse four elected representatives have suffered while serving their communities.
Her political career took off about five years ago as a parish councillor, which was when she began to be attacked online.Samantha Townsend says the threats did not stop her from standing for election Labour's Nick Forbes has led Newcastle City Council since 2011 and was first elected as a councillor in 2000.
"One of the things that has been said to me, even by the police in the past, is 'Oh well, you should just be able to put up with that because as an elected figure, that goes with the job' - but abuse shouldn't go with anyone's job, nobody should feel intimidated or threatened," he said. "At the end of the day anyone can set up an anonymised account on Facebook and Facebook won't do anything about it unless there's a clear threat of violence," he said.
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