THE Gerry Adams 'N-word' gaffe joins a long line of recent controversies caused by remarks used by the north's politicians online.
His party colleague Phil Flanagan is set to pay almost £50,000 in compensation to Ulster Unionist MP Tom Elliott over a defamatory tweet.
In the Twitter message Mr Flanagan falsely suggested that Mr Elliott had harassed and shot people as a soldier, Belfast's High Court was told earlier this year.
The defamatory message was posted online after Mr Elliott appeared on a radio programme in May 2014.
In 2013 prominent Belfast unionist councillor Ruth Patterson caused uproar over an online post that led to her receiving an informed warning from police.
In a conversation on Facebook, she had responded to a post about an imaginary attack on a republican parade in Castlederg in which several people including Sinn Féin figures are killed.
She had said: "We would have done a great service to Northern Ireland and the world."
In 2014 the UUP's Michael Copeland apologised for a tweet about Alliance MLA Anna Lo that he accepted could be viewed as racist.
Linking to a newspaper report about Ms Lo, who is originally from Hong Kong, the message read: "A while back we asked what happened when you vote yellow? Well maybe it's more of a yellowish green?"
She had been criticised by unionists at the time after declaring her preference for a united Ireland in an Irish News interview.
Mr Copeland said he was not "racially prejudiced", saying his reference to yellow was about the Alliance Party's colours.
In the same year DUP minister Simon Hamilton's Twitter profile was spotted following a pornography account on the site called 'Orgasm Gifs'.
The DUP said it appeared the pornographic account had been followed "inadvertently", and the minister quickly unfollowed it when this was discovered.
In 2011 the DUP's Ian McCrea provoked anger after tweeting that he was glad to see Tyrone beaten in the GAA Ulster Championship semi-final, saying it would hopefully "keep the celebrations out of Mid Ulster".
Mr McCrea later tried to defend his position by saying that "thousands of pounds of public money has been wasted on receptions for Tyrone".
It is not the first time a senior politician has landed in hot water for remarks made. In 2014 the then first minister Peter Robinson was forced to apologise about remarks made about Muslims.
The former DUP leader sparked outrage for defending an evangelical preacher being investigated by police over a speech against Islam.
Mr Robinson said he would not trust Muslims involved in violence or those devoted to Sharia law, but he said he would "trust them to go to the shops" for him.
Thousands of people attended an anti-racism rally in Belfast in response to the remarks and attacks on migrants in the city.
Mr Robinson later publicly apologised for any offence caused.
