Twitter urged to tackle racial abuse
TWITTER remain “deeply committed to improving the health of the conversation” on the social media platform following criticism from Kick It Out after Chelsea forward Tammy Abraham was the victim of online racial abuse.
Abraham’s penalty was saved by Liverpool goalkeeper Adrian to hand the Super Cup to the Reds on Wednesday night, and the 21-year-old was the subject of abusive posts on Twitter.
There have been a series of unsavoury incidents already this season and anti-discrimination campaigners Kick It Out were quick to condemn it
In a statement, Twitter highlighted the recent ‘health update’ post earlier this year, with significant progress made when it comes to hateful conduct on the service.
“We continue to take action on any account that violates the Twitter Rules,” a spokesperson said.
“We welcome people to freely express themselves on our service, however, as outlined in our Hateful Conduct Policy, users cannot promote violence against, threaten or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity or other protected groups.
“We remain deeply committed to improving the health of the conversation on the service and in that respect we continue to prioritise the safety of our users.”
Kick It Out maintains more must be done to combat the social media trolls.
“We send our support to Tammy and reiterate our call for Twitter and other social media companies to clamp down on this level of abuse,” a statement read. “This is a call to action — we want to know what they are going to do to tackle this insidious problem.”