Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Protecting athletes from social media abuse
“FU **** G ni***r, leave football you fuc **** pig.”
This is just one of the many racist messages English footballer Tyrone Mings has received on social media in the past few months.
Mings, an Aston Villa defender, has been targeted by social media trolls on several occasions in the past year, with the latest incident occurring last weekend when the Premier League team suffered a defeat at the hands of leaders Manchester City.
Responding to the latest hateful message he received, the English footballer tweeted: “Another day in the life of social media with no filter. Please don’t feel sorry for us, just stand side by side in the fight for change. Social media isn’t getting any safer without it.”
Mings is not the only athlete to have suffered social media abuse.
In the past few years, it has skyrocketed, with thousands from all over the world being targeted.
In Britain’s Premier League, several black footballers have recently suffered racist taunts at the hands of social media trolls.
Players such as Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford and Paul Pogba, Chelsea’s Tammy Abraham, and Reading’s Yakou Meite all said they had received racist messages online after missing penalties in their team’s most recent matches.
And Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold, Naby Keïta and Sadio Mané have suffered the same.
The players were sent racist emojis and comments via Instagram after the club’s Champions League quarter-final first-leg loss to Real Madrid three weeks ago.
The situation has become so bad that a coalition of English football’s largest governing bodies and organisations, including the Football Association, the Premier League, and EFL have chosen to go silent on social media this weekend in a show of solidarity against racism.
The FA Women’s Super League, FA Women’s Championship, Professional Footballers’ Association, League Managers’ Association, PGMOL, Kick It Out, Women in Football and the Football Supporters’ Association are also suspending all use of their social media accounts until Monday, May 3.
In South Africa, athletes such as Caster Semenya have also been targeted by social media trolls. It’s a trend that has been going on for a number of years, and continues to grow at a worrying rate.
The drastic increase has prompted renowned international sports integrity service, Sportradar, to launch a ground-breaking new service that both addresses and protects professional athletes from the growing problem of online abuse.
The Player Protection service is available to all sports federations, leagues and governing bodies, including all of South Africa’s athletes and sports federations.
The service is designed to protect the mental health and well-being of professional athletes by keeping them free from harm online and providing peace of mind by discouraging future trolling and abuse through successful investigation, proactive intervention and disruption.
“Sportradar’s Player Protection Services is operated by the Intelligence and Investigation team (I&I) who identify social media trolls following abuse towards athletes, referees, administrators and media figures involved in the business of sport,” Sportradar managing director of Integrity Services Andreas Krannich told Independent Media.
“Sports federations want to tackle the abuse as a duty of care and to actively protect players and employees against the increasing threat of online-based attacks. This is a positive step the federation can take to protect their members.
“For instance, knowing that a particular troll is an imminent threat – or not – is key. In addition, effective action protects the mental well-being of players. The Player Protection Service from I&I can help individuals and organisations get assistance from law enforcement bodies and social media platforms to combat the problem; this acts as a powerful deterrent for future abusers.”
Describing how the service will work, Krannich said: “I&I use open source tools, public databases and historical intelligence to uncover all possible information about a target.
“We have designed our own tools for intelligence collation, some adapted from everyday applications, to ensure we can uncover the maximum intelligence available on the account or person in question. This includes finding associated details from the account and triangulating these across different social media platforms.
“We then work with the partner to report the trolls to the appropriate channel, to ensure it is more difficult for the troll to hurl abuse – or even face criminal proceedings.
“Our team members hail from law enforcement and military intelligence, meaning they have the required experience to carry out such investigations.”
Sportradar’s Intelligence and Investigation Services team assists more than 80 partners, including federations, clubs, National Anti-Doping Organisations and law enforcement, identifying and investigating integrity threats to countries, sports and businesses.
The Player Protection Service was successfully trialled last year at the Exo-Tennis Series across Germany and the US.
Krannich said it was of utmost importance to maintain the integrity of sport and to make sure athletes around the world are free of abuse.
Krannich added that social media abuse was prominent on a variety of platforms, with Instagram, Facebook and Twitter seeing the most traffic overall.