Rashford the latest target of Twitter abuse
Lawyer advises legal action against social media giants Companies ‘unlikely’ to set up ID checks unless forced
Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has again condemned the online racist abuse of his players after Marcus Rashford’s missed penalty against Crystal Palace made him the latest target.
Solskjaer had already called on social media platforms to act swiftly to delete racist messages and punish those who send them to footballers and other ce- lebrities after Paul Pogba was also abused following his missed penalty against Wolves on Monday night.
Rashford’s missed spot-kick, which hit a post after Scott McTominay had been tripped, helped Palace secure their first Premier League victory over United, 2-1, and exposed familiar failings in Solskjaer’s side.
It also brought racism on social media back into focus. A search of Rashford’s name on Twitter in the minutes after his penalty miss showed several vile messages with the word n ***** in them.
They were swiftly deleted, either by the user or by Twitter, which has promised to tackle the problem more zealously after widespread criticism.
“It’s the same as we spoke about before the weekend,” said Solskjaer, “It’s unheard of, it needs to stop and I’m just lost for the words that it keeps going on. We keep having all these campaigns, no to racism and they [social media users] keep hiding behind fake identifications. It’s crazy we are still talking about this sort of thing in 2019.”
For those familiar with Twitter for some time, the abuse is no surprise, although its frequency appears to be rising.
Solskjaer has been shocked by the number of incidents since he became United manager and hinted before the Palace defeat that complacency has set in in the battle against racism.
He said: “We need to protect individuals and protect people. When there’s death threats and racism, it’s serious allegations, serious incidents.
“I think so [we’ve become complacent] and I am not going to go into politics, but you can follow the world in politics and it’s not too far [from what we see on social media].”
Paul Pogba, Marcus Rashford and other Premier League stars were last night told to sue social media platforms if they want to curb racist abuse on the sites.
The Manchester United players and other victims of what Harry Maguire last week branded “pathetic” online trolls were warned that the social-media giants were unlikely to do enough to prevent them being targeted unless forced to do so by law.
Rashford yesterday became the latest footballer to be the subject of vile messages after missing a penalty in Manchester United’s shock defeat by Crystal Palace, five days after Pogba was targeted for failing from the spot in United’s 1-1 draw at Wolves.
That had prompted condemnation from the club and direct lobbying of Twitter and Facebook-owned Instagram by his team-mates, including Rashford and Maguire. The latter deID manded both companies start verifying users’ identities to prevent them opening anonymous accounts from which to abuse people with impunity.
Maguire’s call was echoed by Bobby Barnes, the deputy chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, and Troy Townsend, the head of development of Kick It Out. It followed similar abuse directed at Chelsea striker Tammy Abraham and Reading midfielder Yakou Meite.
In response, Twitter and Instagram both said that they would do more to tackle the problem, with the latter indicating it would consider introducing ID verification.
But a lawyer, who has pursued cases involving online abuse and harassment, told The Sunday Telegraph he doubted either company would do so voluntarily. Iain Wilson, of Brett Wilson LLP, said: “It is unlikely they will ever do enough unless and until the law forces them to do so – either by someone in Pogba’s position bringing a test claim to establish a precedent or by Parliament legislating.”
Wilson said the social media giants’ failure to demand ID from users left them open “in theory” to being sued for harassment by the likes of Pogba, who could argue they had taken insufficient steps to prevent racist abuse of him being posted on their platforms.
Damian Collins, the chairman of Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee, told The Sunday Telegraph that the Government should consider forcing social media companies to introduce ID checks.
Collins, who said last week his committee would be interested in hearing from Pogba if he was not satisfied with the response by the firms to abuse directed at him, called for account verification to “become the norm”.
He added: “It can’t be right that cowards and racists can hide behind the anonymity of social media to attack people, often using bogus accounts.”
The Government produced a white paper this year on online harms, but although Nigel Adams, the Sports Minister, said last week it would hold companies “legally responsible for tackling disgusting behaviour” on their platforms, it was unclear whether checks would be mandatory.
Twitter and Instagram failed to respond last week when asked by The Telegraph why they did not carry out such checks, which are routine among betting companies, but a social media expert said they could argue that doing so would have implications for freedom of speech and human rights. Adam Gray, co-founder of social media management consultancy Digital Leadership Associates, said anonymous accounts protected those who were “genuinely concerned for their safety”.
It is hard to see Facebook and Twitter voluntarily handing over users’ details to those who would do them harm, but Gray said: “There are always data leaks.” He also said social media companies’ primary mission was to connect as many people as possible and
that ID checks would limit that and would hit them in the pocket. “There’s always protecting the bottom line,” said Gray. That is also why the likes of Pogba are unlikely to boycott the sites – for any length of time anyway – which he and his sponsors use to communicate directly with his millions of followers.
For now, Twitter plans to meet Manchester United and Kick It Out – Chelsea also want a meeting – and is thought to be willing to proactively monitor the accounts of leading black footballers and delete racist posts the moment they are made, rather than waiting for them to be flagged up.
Twitter declined to comment on what would be a controversial policy, or on Wilson’s claims, while Instagram did not respond to a request for comment.