Redding confident as WSB teams complete final testing
The ugly side of social media strikes again as trolls savage top riders
Imagine having an off day at work, you didn’t perform at your best or you made a mistake, and when you look at your phone you’ve been inundated with a barrage of rude, abusive messages. This is now the unpleasant reality being faced by many sportsmen and women on a regular basis.
After last month’s Portuguese MotoGP race, Maverick Viñales was the target after a fake news story was published stating that he was considering quitting MotoGP over the track limits ruling which cost him a front row start. As a result, Viñales deleted his Twitter account, forced off the platform by trolls. Prior to that, Jack Miller took a hiatus from the social media app after receiving negative messages following his bar-to-bar battle with Joan Mir at Qatar 2.
Social media abuse is now being highlighted more than it ever has been before. At the end of April, football clubs, players, athletes, and selected sporting outlets boycotted social media for four days to take a stand against abuse and discrimination. No breaking news, no interviews, no reports, no behind the scenes content. Nothing. It was a brilliant initiative but at this stage it doesn’t appear to have made the right impact. Just days afterwards footballer Raheem Sterling received racist abuse on Instagram.
The current culture of social media means it’s just too easy for somebody sat behind their keyboard to type whatever they want without thinking about the consequences. Motorcycle racers, racing drivers, footballers… They’re all seen as superstars and, to some extent, not normal humans because of their top-level ability and achievements. We see the riders in front of the camera at the end of the race talking about their win or justifying a disappointing finish, but we don’t know what’s happening for them behind the scenes.
The big question is: What can be done? Social media remains a crucial tool for riders and teams to not only interact with their fans, but to also promote their sponsors to thousands, if not millions, of people. Aleix Espargaro hinted that more riders will employ agencies to run their accounts, swapping personal insight for generalised, almost robotic, content if nothing changes. Another option is for the social media boycotts to become more frequent and for longer durations to
‘It’s all too easy for trolls to hide behind screens’
see if that can have a lasting effect. But ultimately this would be a big loss for the 99% of positive fans who just want to follow the activity of their heroes. Something needs to be done to stop the bad batch of internet trolls before they literally spoil it for the rest of us.