An academic targeted by loyalist trolls has called on the DUP to provide clarification about alleged connections between a local council candidate and a Twitter account belonging to a research group linked to the UDA.
Queen’s University lecturer Professor Colin Harvey has in the past been the target of offensive slurs and violent threats on social media, including some from a now defunct Twitter account, @WestBelfastUPRG.
The UPRG provides political analysis to the UDA.
Read More: Sir Jeffrey Donaldson says he has 'no knowledge' of DUP candidate's involvement in UDA-linked Twitter account
North Belfast DUP election candidate Ian McLaughlin has been linked to the account, which was taken down earlier this year.
It has been suggested that Mr McLaughlin, a community development officer with the Lower Shankill Community Association, was responsible for posting offensive content from the account.
Professor Harvey has been the target of online loyalist abuse over his pro united Ireland views.
The academic, who is a board member with pro-unity group Ireland's Future, has been forced to fit a panic button fitted in his office while his nameplate has been removed from the door as a security measure.
Last year the Policing Board was told there had been threats to behead the former Northern Ireland Human Rights commissioner.
Vile abuse directed at Professor Harvey via the @WestBelfastUPRG account descrbed him as a "twisted bitter bast**d", "a halfwit", and "unhinged".
He has even been labelled a fake human rights expert.
On Friday Professor Harvey called on the DUP and Mr McLaughlin to provide more clarification about his links to the offensive social media account, which Twitter previously found had violated its rules after the academic made a complaint.
"As someone who has been targeted regularly and obsessively by a wide range of appalling anonymous social media accounts, including @WestBelfastUPRG, I would - like many others - welcome further clarification from the DUP and Ian McLaughlin," Mr Harvey said.
"There are outstanding questions that need to be addressed."
It came as DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson claimed Mr McLaughlin is not a member of the UPRG.
"We have talked to Ian and Ian is not a member of the UPRG,” he said on Thursday.
"Ian has been a member of the DUP for some time, Ian went through the proper selection process.”
Mr Donaldson said he had no knowledge of any connection between Mr McLaughlin and any controversial tweets.
"He denied he is responsible for what has been alleged, I have yet to see the evidence," Mr Donaldson told BBC NI politics programme The View.
He also declined to refused to speculate on Mr McLaughlin’s future “without evidence”.
The DUP has also come under scrutiny over Mid East Antrim candidate Marc Collins who faced suspension from the council over tweets about Sinn Fein’s John Finucane.
East Antrim candidate Tyler Hoey's social media usage has also come into focus after it emerged he liked a tweet praising the 1993 Greysteel massacre, which claimed the lives of eight people.
The DUP has been contacted.
