Ferdinand insists unity is only way to defeat racism

ANTON FERDINAND says the entire football community must work together to tackle racism and discrimination.

A social media boycott is currently taking place as organisations look to highlight online abuse and encourage social media giants to do more to eradicate hate on their platforms.

The campaign started at 3pm on Friday and a huge array of social channels will stay quiet until 11.59pm tomorrow.

Many other sporting bodies have joined the boycott, along with some major broadcasters such as BT Sport, Sky and TALKSPORT.

European football’s governing body UEFA is taking part and president Aleksander Ceferin (above) gave his unequivocal backing to the initiative. FIFA has also repeatedly expressed itself to be resolutely against racism and discrimination of any kind.

Twitter also released a statement last week, although it didn’t reference the boycott directly. The Us-based business insisted racist abuse was the fault of a tiny minority and “a deep societal and complex issue”.

But Ferdinand, 36, says change is needed at a faster pace.

The former West Ham, Sunderland and England Under-21 defender wants social media companies to be more accountable and urged world football’s governing bodies to keep piling the pressure on.

“We’ve seen over the last 10 days with the Super League announcement what togetherness and unity can do,” Ferdinand (left) said.

“Let’s show the same type of energy when it comes to fighting discrimination on social media platforms.

“You’ve seen how UEFA and FIFA came out against the Super League. But when it comes to racism and discrimination they don’t act quickly at all.”

Ferdinand reckons fans and players must keep exposing vile comments and reporting them to social media companies.

“If you’re not going to get involved, you’re becoming part of the problem,” he said. “It’s not just an ethnic minority problem – it’s everyone’s problem.”

BT’S #Drawtheline campaign will see BT Sport highlight the issue of online abuse and introduce an anti-online abuse policy, deleting, blocking or reporting hate and abuse on its channels. bt.com/drawtheline