I spent the weekend reporting racist abuse on social media. This is what happened next One of the main dividing issues between social media giants and those who are the target of the racism and […]

One of the main dividing issues between social media giants and those who are the target of the racism and abuse on their sites is who should deal with the problem. Bournemouth defender Tyrone Mings told i last weekend that it is not up to black footballers who are subjected to shocking racism every day on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to report it.

The companies, however, believe it should be policed by the users, and they have spent the past few years developing fancy reporting tools to assist.

So i spent the weekend seeing how that was going for them. Picking a few posts at random from Manchester City and England forward Raheem Sterling’s Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts revealed a very grim place. Be warned, this is extremely unpleasant and offensive. He is called a “F***** black boy” and a “Black c***” and a “black b******”. Another user says: “You f****** n**** and your black fat mom.” One says: “Get your ass back in that ship to Jamaica u monkey cock.”

Homophobia, sexism, racism

There are reams of homophobia, sexism, threats of violence and someone claiming to leak his mobile phone number. “I hope your knee caps pop out and you die on the pitch,” one says. “F*** off back to Jamaica… I hope your daughter falls off a cliff,” says another. Someone says: “African man I will kill you very very soon animal” and another: “hope your kid gets aids.” One user even brands him a “Filthy mudblood” – a derogatory term from Harry Potter.

‘Hateful conduct, in all its forms, is a violation of the Twitter Rules’ Twitter spokesperson

This goes on and on and on. And on. And on. And this is just a gentle scratch of the surface. This is one player, albeit one of the higher profile players (2.1m follow his page on Facebook, 1.39m follow his tweets and 3.1m his pictures on Instagram), and a handful of posts: a picture of Sterling wearing a hat from the Vita De Lusso fashion company, one of him sitting on a sofa, another in the changing room with his Manchester City team-mates, after a new hair-cut, celebrating Jamaican Independence Day.

Users either aren’t reporting this stuff or, if they are, it is not being removed, because some of these posts are from four years ago. Sterling is not a prolific poster and it takes about 10 seconds to scroll down to 2014. Are we supposed to believe nobody does that?

What happens when it is reported?

In fairness to the trio, their reporting tools were very clear. Instagram instantly removed offending posts after they were reported. Twitter and Facebook did not do so straight away, but by Monday morning offending content had been deleted. Yet when i had a look at Twitter via another user’s account, some of the messages were still there. “F*** Off n****” was still there – that obviously needs more analysis by the Twitter guardians to check if it was racist. Facebook, in contrast, had completely removed “Ya black bastered” from view.

When i contacted these three social media companies for their response to Mings’ revelations of the stark racism he and other black players faced, Facebook and Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) would not even go on record denouncing racism on their platforms, though Instagram say they have a zero tolerance towards bullying or threatening behaviour and, for Facebook, making sure people have a safe and positive experience is, apparently, the most important thing they do. Twitter said that “hateful conduct, in all its forms, is a violation of the Twitter Rules”.

No-brainer

The problem is so bad that some players pay people to handle their social media, because they need the exposure these sites bring for sponsorship and commercial reach, but they do not want to deal with the abuse. Mings had a simple way of at least significantly stifling the racism: prevent users from being able to post clearly racist words. Take the n-word, for example, and variations of its spelling. It seems a no-brainer. No?

A Twitter source gave i some context as to why they don’t do that. They explained that some people believe they use that word in an inoffensive way between friends and they would not want to prevent that. And as it stands, although computers are widely predicted to eventually destroy us all, they are not yet able to determine nuance of language: whether the n-word is used offensively, or between friends (though many would argue it is offensive either way).

They also said that social media companies had buried their head in the sand on the issue until the last couple of years, since when they have been taking the matter seriously. These companies are clearly a long way from digging their way out.

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