What to do about Online Racist Abuse?

[Jericholyte2]

The most depressing prediction as soon as that shoot-out was over was that Saka, Rashford and Sancho would get a plethora of vile racist abuse by keyboard cowards.

This is as horrific as it is predictable and it needs to be stamped out like the virus that it is in society!

For me the only way to correct this is to have full identity authentication so it is no longer ‘Gammon-warrior69’ who’s seen to be abusing these people, but Mark Jones, 24yrs old from Basingstoke.

But of course these are private platforms and so Twitter, Insta and Facebook will come out with the same bullshit PR nonsense and do absolutely feck all!

 

[Jagga7]

I went to Saka's Instagram, and positive messages are drowning out the rubbish which is a major improvement and nice to see.

 

[padr81]

Same as any other time, report any hate and racist rubbish, give the lads some support. Their day will come, they are top young players.

 

[United Hobbit]

Unfortunately you just knew it was inevitable, which is the worrying thing about all this

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/57800431 (all 3 have indeed suffered racist abuse)

Social Media needs to do more so people can't just hid behind an anonymous account, until they can't, horribly this will continue to happen

It needs people to be able to be identified and the book thrown at them. They obviously shouldn't want to do it, but need to make it impossible for them to do it without punishment

Maybe Maguires suggestion about needing ID linked to an account? Certain words flag up although if one of the ones which is more often than not used, it would be very hard to police/ filter.

 

[kouroux]

The players need to all leave those platforms in one movement in order to make a powerful symbol

 

[Josep Dowling]

Should be ID’d to set up an account. Only way it stops. It’s amazing government haven’t forced these tech companies to do this.

 

[Pexbo]

The players need to all leave those platforms in one movement in order to make a powerful symbol

By players, it has to be all of them and not just the non-white players. There has to be solidarity.

 

[UncleBob]

Should be ID’d to set up an account. Only way it stops. It’s amazing government haven’t forced these tech companies to do this.

exactly. Its a piss easy solution

 

[Cloud7]

The only people who can do anything about it on the disgracefully large scale it occurs on are the social media companies themselves. I imagine it shouldn’t be too difficult to simply filter out certain words/phrases, or if someone reports something and they see it is indeed racist to forward it to the relevant authorities.

 

[kouroux]

By players, it has to be all of them and not just the non-white players. There has to be solidarity.

Exactly. It needs to be prepared, a massive planetary movement.

 

[Acquire Me]

Should be ID’d to set up an account. Only way it stops. It’s amazing government haven’t forced these tech companies to do this.

It is the only way. Should be done ASAP.

 

[hobbers]

It's not an easy solution because these are global platforms and legislation forcing ID in one country won't stop racists anywhere else or any racist who knows what a vpn is.

The companies themselves won't do anything about forcing ID worldwide because that would crush their user uptake. So you'd need every country forcing legislation which obviously won't happen.

The real answer is you make it more difficult to send private messages to famous people and you make better algorithms that detect and delete racist content faster. Or even better, everyone checks off of instagram and twitter for good, and the world gets a lot better overnight.

 

[Trequarista10]

Saw a tweet with the n word and it amazed me that the word isn't blocked/amended.

Can't even post l-o-l, feck, cnut, YAWN, lma-o, rof.l etc on this comparatively tiny forum without it being blocked or autocorrected.

 

[Wolf1992]

exactly. Its a piss easy solution

It's no as easy as it sounds.

Asking for ID and personal information to get an account on a social media plataform it's a double edge sword...because you will have a lot of hackers and creepy stalkers salivating with the idea of people letting out their personal information just like that.

Sounds very good on paper but it has some cons.

 

[UncleBob]

It's no as easy as it sounds.

Asking for ID and personal information to get an account on a social media plataform it's a double edge sword...because you will have a lot of hackers and creepy stalkers salivating with the idea of people letting out their personal information just like that.

Sounds very good on paper but it has some cons.

It's a non-issue. People already sign up to social media, and a shitload of other services, with their personal information. It's not a question of being forced to post using their real name, but being forced to verify the identity of the account before being able to use it. There's plenty of options on how to implement it in order to limit the worries of security issues

 

[BrilliantOrange]

What to do about Online Racist Abuse?

Make it mandatory for Instagram, Twitter, Facebook to have verified identification for each account, so always every account is traceble to an individual...

There are obviously also a lot of privacy related arguments against this (so Im not necessarily opting for it), but I think its the only real way to fight against this kind of racism..

 

[Vidyoyo]

I have a hard time taking the internet seriously so maybe I'm dumb but are they actually real accounts? Twitter is rife with fake accounts and - for whatever reason - they seem to only exist to get comments and retweets, which is precisely what this type of abuse would bring.

I imagine there's definitely actual abuse but it seems hard to fully comprehend the 'reality' given how much of a mess Twitter is at this point.

 

[Sky1981]

I don't think it's fair to fish for reaction from a socmed comment section. They're there not to be taken seriously.

And it's not only exclusive to England, every nation comment section is filled with vile and trash you'd best ignore it.

 

[OverratedOpinion]

Short term, the social media platforms need to improve drastically at moderating this stuff.

In the longer term the only thing that can actually change things like this is education. Much like how 30 years ago smoking was seen as totally socially acceptable and is now looked at totally differently resulting in far less smokers.

 

[Zlatan 7]

I guess the players could all leave as one to make a point but really I don’t see why they should have to.

fans could try to drown the negativity with positivity I suppose if that’s even possible.

I don’t go on Twitter or Instagram so don’t see much of it myself but what I see posted here and reported on seems a shitfest of absolute bellends. Supposed fans of the players/ teams/ countries too. Upsetting and embarrassing.

 

[Ayoba]

The players need to all leave those platforms in one movement in order to make a powerful symbol

I think this is the only solution. We know the platforms won't introduce any strict security measures, so what better way to force them into action by all the stars fecking off

 

[BrilliantOrange]

Regardless of whether its only England or not,
Regardless of whether you would want to pay attention to it and you should take it serious or not,
Regardless of whether they are real or fake accounts.

Fact of the matter is that these guys are getting slammed with racial slurs and it should stop.. Even if its only 1 guy with an IQ of 25 having 30.000 fake accounts responsible for all the comments...

 

[Botim]

A lot of it is trolls from Russia and elsewhere who make it a sport to cause uproar.

I don't think you can make it obligatory to join with an ID, as some countries won't bother to mandate this. They (fb, insta,...) could, however, make it an option that gives you certain benefits. Like: you can only post on other people's pages if you have a verified account. Or as a user you can chose to block non-verified accounts from sending you messages, etc

 

[BrilliantOrange]

I think this is the only solution. We know the platforms won't introduce any strict security measures, so what better way to force them into action by all the stars fecking off

Never gonna happen. Players are brands and social media is thé channel for them to market themselves.

 

[sullydnl]

As Gary Neville just pointed out, it would help if the PM who is today condemning this abuse hadn't said it was okay for fans to boo players for taking the knee a few weeks earlier.

In the context of the players being booed for an anti-racism gesture at the start of the tournament, is anyone really surprised at them receiving racist abuse at the end? It's fine to focus on the specific online aspects of the abuse but the tone was set offline.

 

[moses]

If a newspaper printed the comments they could be sued as the publisher, thus they don't. It's too late now but in the early days people called for the same libel and defamation laws that apply to print and then adjust as fit. It would have had its own problems but now that these platforms are commercial giants we will find it very hard to create any legislation they don't like.

 

[VorZakone]

Stop this ID nonsense. You wanna give away more privacy to tech platforms?

 

[Barthez]

Unless you cull all the morans and knuckle draggers then it’ll never go away unfortunately as eradicating and educationing “stupid” is an impossible task. People just hide behind false profiles unless there is a proper robust registration process.

 

[Nytram Shakes]

I think yesterday highlighted that while football can bring out some totally beutiful human emotions, Football, and British culture an extremely disgraceful underbelly. The only way we get rid of it is through education and punishment.

 

[KikiDaKats]

A lot of it is trolls from Russia and elsewhere who make it a sport to cause uproar.

I don't think you can make it obligatory to join with an ID, as some countries won't bother to mandate this. They (fb, insta,...) could, however, make it an option that gives you certain benefits. Like: you can only post on other people's pages if you have a verified account. Or as a user you can chose to block non-verified accounts from sending you messages, etc

Why Russia? Some of us have the potential to say the most vile things going.
Jokingly, I'd SMNs should create algos that will automatically abuse the poster the moment they spew their bile. This will make you look a fool instead of the aggressor you trying to be.

 

[MadMike]

You cannot easily have a platform mixing anonymous with eponymous users.

You either have a platform where all users are anonymous like Redcafe, Reddit or 4Chan... or you have a platform where users are eponymous. If a platform of wide availability like Insta or Twitter mixes anonymity with eponymity it just encourages trolls to hide their attacks behind their anonymity.

Perhaps what should be done is not allow anonymous accounts to interact with eponymous accounts beyond liking a post. You want to respond or DM, you need to be certified. Otherwise just follow and like.

 

[Lagger]

I can tell you what to do. Next time one of your buddies cracks a joke that's racist or unfair, don't chuckle along. Tell him it's uncalled for. It's the tiny things that snowball into it. How often did someone say something stupid and we didn't comment, because... cringe, awkward! Yeah, that needs to change. It's awkward anyway, don't just stand there and change the topic or, worse, grin like an idiot to avoid the confrontation.

 

[hobbers]

Perhaps what should be done is not allow anonymous accounts to interact with eponymous accounts beyond liking a post. You want to respond or DM, you need to be certified. Otherwise just follow and like.

This is pretty much the only way to do it. But it would mean the death of social media as anything other than a marketing tool for companies and celebrities. Which, of course, is what it's been slowly turning into for years now anyway. This would just hasten the demise.

 

[BrilliantOrange]

Stop this ID nonsense. You wanna give away more privacy to tech platforms?

There are multiple solutions right.. Also plenty where you do not provide tech platforms with additional data/power/info.. For example all ID data/Authentication services could be managed by government instances...

By the way everyone is obviously still allowed to chose nót to be on social media..

 

[MadMike]

This is pretty much the only way to do it. But it would mean the death of social media as anything other than a marketing tool for companies and celebrities. Which, of course, is what it's been slowly turning into for years now anyway. This would just hasten the demise.

In my opinion they have to choose between this type of demise and the diminished use it brings, or outright banning. As in, governments should step in and say that you either implement this or you're banned from operating in the country. Choose your poison.

What's the point in allowing a company that offers little to the society, bar toxicity, from profiting and continuing to exist. What's the benefit? It's not censorship, you can discuss anything anonymously on Reddit or 4chan or whatever. Just no mixing between anonymity and eponymity for obvious reasons.

 

[Piratesoup]

As long as the internet is freely accessible by everyone (especially children and teens) the only way to completely escape racial abuse online is to go offline.

 

[UnrelatedPsuedo]

If we stopped amplifying it that would probably help.

Some people are just garbage. They need to be punished. In the meanwhile, tens of thousands of people screenshotting the vile stuff and sharing it… Really stupid. Understandable. But stupid.

 

[JustAGuest]

There are multiple solutions right.. Also plenty where you do not provide tech platforms with additional data/power/info.. For example all ID data/Authentication services could be managed by government instances...

By the way everyone is obviously still allowed to chose nót to be on social media..

If you trust the government that's fine. In cases where you risk getting jailed (or worse) for having a negative opinion on those in power it becomes more problematic.

 

[r3idy]

By players, it has to be all of them and not just the non-white players. There has to be solidarity.

Agree with you but it is highly unlikely to happen. A lot of the players use Insta / Twitter / TikTok for the promotion of their own person brand. From a monetisation point of view, it makes no sense to jump ship.

BTW not condoning any of the abuse that players took, nor suggesting if you dance with the devil then a price must be paid.

 

[Rozay]

So long as racism exists in society it will of course, exist on the Internet. The issue isn’t so much the racism online as it is the racism in the UK.

This is why Saka should have chosen Nigeria. On the whole, England will never love him the way Nigeria will.