FAI back push on social media platforms to tackle abusers

The Football Association of Ireland Offices at the FAI National Training Centre in Abbotstown. File photo

The Football Association of Ireland have supported the lead taken by English governing bodies, who have written to Twitter and Facebook claiming their platforms remain "havens of abuse".

The open letter to chief executives Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg asks them "for reasons of basic human decency" to use the power of their systems to end the abuse.

Manchester United players Marcus Rashford, Axel Tuanzebe, Anthony Martial and Lauren James are among those who have been the targets of social media abuse, along with West Brom's Romaine Sawyers and Chelsea defender Reece James, Lauren James' brother.

It remains to be seen if the FAI follow the initiative with their own open plea.

They said in a statement to the Irish Examiner: “The FAI is committed to safeguarding all of our players against any form of abuse on social media. We work with all the social media companies on an ongoing basis and will continue to do so to protect our players. We commend the stance taken today by English football and support it.”

The problem has also seeped into Irish football. Ireland full-back Cyrus Christie was left perplexed by the lack of action arising from racist abuse he received in the wake of the 2018 World Cup play-off defeat to Denmark.

Since then, fellow international David McGoldrick was on the end of similar comments, while Alan Browne became a target of trolls following his miss in the Euro 2021 play-off shoot-out against Slovakia.

Last week, Ireland striker Aaron Connolly felt compelled to delete his social media accounts in the aftermath of Brighton’s win over Tottenham. The Galwegian had missed a chance after coming on as a substitute in the Premier League game.

Domestically, too, issues have cropped up. Racist abuse was posted in the comments section of the livestream showing the U17 League of Ireland final between Shamrock Rovers and Bohemians in December. A week later, sexist remarks appeared throughout the Women’s U17 final between Rovers and Cork City.

Thursday's letter was signed by Football Association chief executive Mark Bullingham, his counterparts at the Premier League and the EFL, Richard Masters and Trevor Birch, the director of the women's professional game Kelly Simmons, Professional Footballers' Association chief executive Gordon Taylor, League Managers Association chief executive Richard Bevan, referees' chief Mike Riley and Kick It Out chair Sanjay Bhandari.

It urges them to ensure no user is "hounded off" their platforms because of their gender or the colour of their skin.

They demand the platforms to put in place mechanisms which filter or block posts containing racist or discriminatory material, operate "robust, transparent and swift" measures to take down any material which does get into circulation and ensure users are subject to an improved verification process so that they can be accurately identified.

The letter said: "The language used is debasing, often threatening and illegal. It causes distress to the recipients and the vast majority of people who abhor racism, sexism and discrimination of any kind.

"We have had many meetings with your executives over the years but the reality is your platforms remain havens for abuse.

"Your inaction has created the belief in the minds of the anonymous perpetrators that they are beyond reach. The relentless flow of racist and discriminatory messages feeds on itself: the more it is tolerated by Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, platforms with billions of users, the more it becomes normal, accepted behaviour.

"The services you provide are of course hugely impressive in their reach, scale and ease of use. Billions of communications every day are enabled by them, but a minority has found protected spaces where they can say whatever they want without regard to the law."

Users who engage in abusive behaviour should be barred from re-registering a new account, the letter said, and the platforms should "actively and expeditiously" assist investigating authorities in their attempts to identify abusers.

The letter concludes: "We, the leaders of the game in English football, will do everything we can to protect them, but we cannot succeed until you change the ability of offenders to remain anonymous.

"We note the current assurances from Facebook that standards will be tightened, but far more is needed to drive change.

"We call for meetings with your organisations to discuss the evidence of abuse on your platforms, the action you are taking, and how you plan to directly address the matters outlined in this letter."

A Facebook company spokesperson said: "We don't want hate and racism on our platforms and remove it when we find it. The new measures we announced yesterday, which include tougher action when we become aware of people breaking our rules in DMs (direct messages), further build on the work we do to tackle this.

"We are part of the working group convened by Kick it Out and will continue to work alongside all the industry bodies, the police and the Government to help tackle racism both on and offline."

Twitter’s response read: "We continue to work closely with valued partners in the football community and through the football working group convened by Kick It Out we will collaborate and identify ways to tackle this unacceptable behaviour - both online and offline."