Twitter officials will hold talks with United in bid to stamp out Pogba abuse
Representatives of Twitter are planning to meet Manchester United officials to discuss the racial abuse of Paul Pogba on the social media platform.
The United midfielder this week became the latest highprofile player to be racially abused online after missing a penalty in his side’s draw against Wolves on Monday. Chelsea striker Tammy Abraham and Reading’s Yakou Meite have also been targeted after failing to score spot-kicks in the past week.
The incidents have led to greater calls for Twitter to take stronger action.
The company had already planned a meeting with antiracism body Kick It Out in the coming weeks and it is now looking to widen its discussions by bringing in United and other organisations. A statement from Twitter read: “Over the next few weeks, Twitter representatives will meet with Manchester United, Kick It Out and any other civil society stakeholders interested in hearing about the proactive work Twitter is doing to address online racist abuse towards certain footballers in the UK.
“We have always maintained an open and healthy dialogue with our partners but we know we need to do more to protect our users. Racist behaviour has no place on our platform and we strongly condemn it.
“To this end, we look forward to working more closely with our partners to develop shared solutions to this issue. In the meantime, for Twitter’s part, wewillcontinuetoproactively monitor the conversation, and take aggressive enforcement action when content violates our rules.”
Twitter added that a series of accounts had been permanently suspended.
United acknowledged contact had been made but a meeting is yet to be arranged. The club had urged Twitter to take action. In a statement, the club said: “Everyone at Manchester United is disgusted by the racial abuse aimed at Paul Pogba and we utterly condemn it.
“The individuals who expressed these views do not represent the values of our great club and it is encouraging to see the vast majority of our fans condemn this on social media also.
“Manchester United has zero tolerance of any form of racism or discrimination and a long-standing commitment to campaigning against it.
“We will work to identify the fewinvolvedintheseincidents and take the strongest course of action available to us. We also encourage social media companies to take action in these cases.”