Facebook, Twitter pledge to tackle racial abuse aimed at England players following loss

Facebook and Twitter have said on July 12 that they were ramping up to take down the racially abusive comments and posts directed to the members of the England football team following a heartbreaking loss in Euro 2020 final on Sunday. Both social media giants said that they were taking down the racist and hateful content on respective platforms which had further triggered criticism from UK political leaders. The three black players who missed penalty kicks for England in the decisive shootout in the crucial match on July 11 against Italy, were subjected to racist abuse online. 

The ugly development of events following the Euro 2020 finals in England prompted the English Football Association to issue a statement condemning the language used against the players. As abuse against English players Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka continued to rage on social media platforms in the aftermath of finals, a Twitter spokesperson told ANI, “The abhorrent racist abuse directed at England players last night has absolutely no place on Twitter.”

The Twitter official said, “In the past 24 hours, through a combination of machine learning-based automation and human review, we have swiftly removed over 1000 Tweets and permanently suspended a number of accounts for violating our rules -- the vast majority of which we detected ourselves proactively using technology. We will continue to take action when we identify any Tweets or accounts that violate our policies.”

 "We have proactively engaged and continue to collaborate with our partners across the football community to identify ways to tackle this issue collectively and will continue to play our part in curbing this unacceptable behaviour—both online and offline," the spokesperson added.

Meanwhile, a Facebook spokesperson has previously said in a separate statement that the company quickly moved on to take down the racially abusive posts aimed at the England players for missing penalty shots in the decisive stage. As per the CNBC report, the Facebook spokesperson has said that “No one should have to experience racist abuse anywhere, and we don’t want it on Instagram.” The official reportedly further said that the photo-sharing app has quickly removed the comments and accounts directing abuse at England’s footballers in the night following the match adding that “we’ll continue to take action against those that break our rules.”

The royals, UK PM and FAA condemn racial abuse

From Duke of Cambridge who was there at Wembley stadium to support the England football team on Sunday along with wife and son to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, leaders united to condemn the racial abuse directed at the players. Meanwhile, on July 12, the British police also opened investigations into the racism of the Black players condemning the “unacceptable” abuse of Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka, and said they will be investigating the “offensive and racist” social media posts published soon after Italy won the shootout 3-2 following a 1-1 draw. A mural of Rashford on the wall of a cafe in south Manchester was also defaced with graffiti in the wake of the match. 

Johnson, Prince William, FAA among others published their furious statements on social media. 19-year-old Saka is one of the youngest players on the England squad and him missing the penalty ultimately gave the title to Italy and denied England its first international trophy since the 1966 World Cup. It was the third straight failure in the high-stakes Sunday match from the penalty spot in the shootout with Rashford and Sancho also missing their chance. 

IMAGE: AP