‘TECH FIRMS NOT FIGHTING TROLLS’

Lions captain Harry Kane in the build-up to Euro 2020 – 54 percent of it racist.

And in Channel 4’s Hunting The Football Trolls, ex-Three Lions midfielder Jermaine Jenas (below) warns: “Now it feels we’re going all the way back to the dark ages of racism.”

Black England stars Marcus Rashford, Jason Sancho and

Bukayo Saka

(above) suffered racist abuse online after missing penalties in the Euro 2020 final shoot-out against Italy.

Yet six weeks after the Wembley drama, only 20 of 105 accounts identified as abusive had been removed.

The PFA players’ union says unmoderated abuse of black footballers on social media rose by 48 percent in the second half of last term.

Since this season began, tech platforms have been very slow to act again, with six percent of messages racially abusing 21 Premier League players removed

by Instagram (three out of 84) and Twitter (two out of 19). Ex-Spurs star Jenas, said: “The bananas being thrown onto the pitch have turned into monkey emojis and gorilla emojis sent to people on social media.

“And the use of the N-word seems to be normalised again.

“We need to ensure these individuals are held to account like they are in other countries such as Germany.

“When I began looking into online hate targeted at players and pundits, I wanted to understand why the messages sent to me weren’t being dealt with, why abuse is growing and what we can do about it.

“I don’t feel anything is going to change how social media companies deal with online hate unless there is real pressure.”

Instagram and Twitter insist they do not tolerate racist abuse and will act when rules are violated.

■ Hunting the Football Trolls, Channel 4, 10pm tonight.