A New Zealand twitter bot aimed at targeting hate tweets will have its hands full this election.

Tech start up Areto Labs has launched an AI that recognises hateful tweets towards female election candidates, and posts a positive response.

So far, it's identified about two percent of tweets sent to women running this year, as toxic.

National's Nicola Willis told Mike Hosking there are just some things you come to expect as a woman campaigning online.

"There are gender based words that are used, starting with letters from the beginning of the alphabet that my mother wouldn't like me to repeat on air."

Willis says Twitter is the harshest of all the social media platforms.

She says she tweeted a photo of herself and her female colleagues, and received the reply - "what a team of pigs in wigs wearing lipstick, pig emoji, you all look as hideous as your personality".

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