Soccer players demand change to end racist insults on the internet

LONDON (AP) — Missing penalties in an international soccer final was bad enough for three black England players. Being subjected to a torrent of racist slurs on social media later made things worse.

Racists dedicated ape emojis to them. They demanded that they go home, even though they were English and in their country.

“It’s stupid,” said Nedum Onuoha, a retired black player who played in the top divisions of English and US soccer for 16 years. “But are we surprised?”

It is the latest form of racism, fueled by technology, visual, permanently invasive, and available 24/7. It’s an ominous reminder of the ape chants of the 1980s and the era when bananas were thrown onto the pitch. But now it is supported by social networks.

And it’s getting out of control on platforms where anonymity is the most precious commodity for racists.

“Every time this happens, it knocks you down,” Onuoha told The Associated Press. “Just when you think everything is fine, this is a reminder that it’s not, of how certain people actually see you.”

Racism is the predominant form of abuse on social media, according to reports received by Kick It Out, an anti-discrimination campaign in soccer. The statistics have been compiled for the last three years in English football.

Last year, a FIFA report showed that more than 50% of the players who competed in two international tournaments in 2021 – the Africa Cup of Nations and the Eurocup – suffered some form of discriminatory abuse in more than 400,000 posts on the internet. social networks. More than a third of those abuses were of a racist nature.

The problem is that there is hardly any accountability. And it is very easy to commit abuses. All you have to do is pick up the phone, find the account of a player you want to insult and send him a racist message.

Mark Bright, former Premier League president, who is black and suffered racist abuse in stadiums during the 1980s, was exchanging messages with his friends in a WhatsApp group when those three black England players — Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho — missed penalties in the loss to Italy, which thus won the Euro 2020 final.

“We all texted each other and said, ‘God, here we go!’ And we knew what was coming,” Bright told The Associated Press. “That was what we expected and this is where we asked ourselves again: ‘What can be done about it?'”

Generally speaking, the abuses have not stopped black gamers from using social media. They are an essential tool for “marketing”.

And this leads to the paradox that footballers use the same platforms on which they suffer abuse.

Kylian Mbappé, who has 104 million followers on Instagram and more than 12 million on Twitter, was subjected to racist abuse along with teammate Kingsley Coman, also black, after the French national team lost to Argentina in the 2022 World Cup final.

Vinicius Junior, a Real Madrid winger who has been the frequent subject of racist insults, has 38 million followers on Instagram and almost 7 million on Twitter.

Saka, who has more than a million followers on Twitter, continues to be on social media despite the abuse after England’s Euro defeat. A few weeks ago, a message posted on the same social network showed the Arsenal winger with his face distorted to resemble that of a monkey.

“This clown has cost us the league,” said a message next to the image.

Minutes before, Saka had missed a penalty in an important Premier League match.

And while social media continues to fuel insults, players and clubs come up with new ways to raise awareness and reduce exposure to abusive users.

GoBubble is a company that sets up artificial intelligence software as a filter to prevent discriminatory comments from being seen by a social media user. It has consumers ranging from the Premier League to the fourth division of English football, as well as in other European countries and Australia.

“Yes, technology has caused the problem,” Henry Platten, founder of GoBubble, told the AP. “But technology can actually solve the issue and that’s what we see as one of the pieces of the puzzle.”

The company’s artificial intelligence technology logs into player accounts and looks for toxic and potentially harmful words. It investigates other types of messages that can be filtered through a “traffic light” system.

“This is not censorship, cleaning up the image of the sport or creating a fictional world where nothing happens,” Platten said. “This is protection, not just for the players and their families, but for the broader community of fans.

Platten said some players who approached him had experienced mental health issues that were impacting their performance. Indeed, Liverpool became the first Premier League club to hire a mental health consultant in January, with a mission to protect young players from online bullying.

The governing bodies of the sport are reacting as well. During last year’s World Cup in Qatar, FIFA and the players’ union FIFPRO had a special moderation service, which sought to prevent displays of racism and other forms of intolerance from being viewed online by players and their fans.

The service will be offered for the next Women’s World Cup.

Football authorities in England, including the Premier League, led a four-day boycott against the social networks Twitter, Facebook and Instagram in 2021, as a protest against racism. The measure was adopted by many other sports in England, as well as by FIFA and UEFA.

However, the abuse continues on the platforms, which have been accused of reacting too slowly to block racist posts, remove offenders’ accounts and improve their verification process to ensure users provide accurate information about their identity and not can connect with a new account if they have been sanctioned.

“This needs to be regulated. You have to be responsible,” Bright said. “Everyone has been complaining about this for a long time. Some players have arranged meetings with these social media companies. It seems to me that they are not serious enough with this ”