London: The leaders of English soccer asked Thursday, the heads of Twitter and Facebook-owned Instagram to show ‘basic human decency’. They said that both Facebook and Instagram should take more robust action to eradicate racism. The leaders said that the users’ identities should be verified for those indulging in racism.
There has been growing outrage that players from the Premier League to the Women’s Super League have been targeted. They have been abused on Twitter and Facebook-owned Instagram.
“The language used is debasing, often threatening and illegal,” the eight English soccer leaders said. They, including the Football Association and Premier League have written to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook chairman Mark Zuckerberg on this issue.
“It causes distress to the recipients and the vast majority of people who abhor racism, sexism and discrimination of any kind. We have had many meetings with your executives over the years. But the reality is your platforms remain havens for abuse. Your inaction has created the belief in the minds of the anonymous perpetrators that they are beyond reach,” the letter stated.
Racism has been targeted online at Manchester United players Marcus Rashford, Axel Tuanzebe, Anthony Martial and Lauren James. Their counterparts in others clubs have also been abused.
“Recent weeks have seen the levels of vicious, offensive abuse from users of your services aimed at footballers and match officials. They have risen even further and so we write to ask that for reasons of basic human decency. Use the power of your global systems to bring this to an end,” the letter to Dorsey and Zuckerberg continued.
Instagram said Wednesday that it would disable accounts that send racism on direct messages. However, the company later acknowledged that only an unspecified number of repeated abusive messages would lead to a ban.
“The targets of abuse should be offered basic protections. We ask that you accept responsibility for preventing abuse from appearing on your platforms,” the letter added.
The soccer officials ask for messages to be filtered. They said those containing racist and discriminatory material be blocked from being posted. They also want an improved verification process that ensures users provide accurate identification information and are barred from registering if banned.
“Many footballers in English football receive illegal abuse from accounts all over the world. You companies have the power to bring this to an end,” the letter said.
The letter was signed by the CEOs of the English Football Association (Mark Bullingham), Premier League (Richard Masters), English Football League (Trevor Birch), Professional Footballers’ Association (Gordon Taylor) and League Managers’ Association (Richard Bevan). It was also signed by the managing director of the referees’ body (Mike Riley), the chairman of the anti-racism group ‘Kick It Out’ (Sanjay Bhandari) and the FA director of the women’s professional game (Kelly Simmons).
“We call for meetings with your organisations to discuss the evidence of abuse on your platforms, the action you are taking, and how you plan to directly address the matters outlined in this letter,” they wrote.