Twitter insists it acts against racist abuse

Twitter has insisted it has clear processes to help the police tackle racist abuse, after former England footballer Stan Collymore was subjected to death threats online.

Collymore, who works as a pundit for radio station Talksport, has asked Staffordshire Police to investigate “horrific” racist tweets. The former Liverpool, Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest striker claims children as young as 10 are being “goaded” by adults into posting racist and sexist tweets.

The 43-year-old star has also accused Twitter of having poor age verification procedures and of “hiding behind” claims that it is unable to comment on individual cases.

In a statement issued via its own site, Twitter told users: “Direct, targeted abuse and specific threats of violence are against our rules. You can let us know if you see abusive Tweets by using the new ‘Report Tweet’ button or through our online forms.”

Twitter said its Trust and Safety team, which is being increased in size, worked 24 hours a day to respond to reports of abusive tweets.

Twitter’s statement added: “We also have a clear process for working with the police and are in ongoing communication with relevant UK police forces to make sure they are aware of our policies.

“Twitter is an open communications platform. Our priority is that users are able to express themselves, within acceptable limits and, of course, within the law.

“We cannot stop people from saying offensive, hurtful things on the internet or on Twitter. But we take action when content is reported to us that breaks our rules or is illegal.”

Collymore used his Twitter account yesterday to urge the social media site to do more to combat internet “trolls”. The broadcaster contacted police last night after receiving a spate of racially offensive messages.

Having attracted more than 500,000 followers on Twitter over the past six years, Collymore received the latest in a string of abusive messages after criticising Liverpool striker Luis Suarez following last Saturday’s match against Aston Villa.

Chief inspector Carl Ratcliffe, Staffordshire’s lead officer on hate crime, said: “Sadly some people mistakenly believe that anything said or done on Twitter or Facebook somehow doesn’t count, they think it doesn’t matter because it’s not face-to-face.

“They are very wrong. Tweeting abuse is a very personal way of causing distress to someone, and it doesn’t matter if the person is famous or not.”

No to abuse

British broadcaster Sky Sports has condemned the “unacceptable and offensive” abuse dished out to former gymnast Beth Tweddle during a live Q&A session.

The bronze medallist at the 2012 London Olympics took part in an interactive Twitter session as part of the Everyday Sexism project, aimed at promoting women in sport. However, she became a victim of insulting tweets completely unrelated to her sport.

One man tweeted: “Are all sportswomen lesbians?” while another asked: “Do you think pregnancy is a poor injury excuse and women should be able to run it off?”

Some of the most offensive tweets were later deleted, but several were published on Storify.

Sky Sports said the abusive tweets highlighted why the project was so important.