Football news - Twitter reveals scale of racism in the UK and beyond after England's Euro 2020 final defeat
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ByEurosport
Updated 10/08/2021 at 13:27 GMT
Online racist abuse continues to be a problem in the United Kingdom and with social media companies pressured to do more to combat derogatory comments made online, Twitter have unveiled their findings around the "abhorrent" racist abuse suffered by England players following the Three Lions' Euro 2020 final defeat to Italy.
A giant mural in support of the three England footballers Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka has been unveiled in Manchester
Image credit: Getty Images
Twitter says the UK was "by far" the main origin of racist posts aimed at England players after the Three Lions' Euro 2020 final defeat on penalties to Italy.
Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka were all subjected to racist abuse online after missing penalties in the shoot-out.
Saka returned to action on Sunday, and the Arsenal youngster was roundly applauded by Tottenham fans during a pre-season friendly between the two teams.
Twitter have released their findings around the Euros final, stating that their "automated tools" are going some way to stop the abuse from spreading, but admit ID verification would have made any difference to the vile comments being made.
Twitter UK said in a statement: "On the night of the Euros final, our automated tools kicked in immediately, and ensured we identified and removed 1,622 abusive tweets in the 24 hours that followed.
"Only two per cent of the tweets we removed generated more than 1,000 impressions.
While many have quite rightly highlighted the global nature of the conversation, it is also important to acknowledge the UK was - by far - the largest country of origin for the abusive tweets we removed.
"Our data suggests that ID verification would have been unlikely to prevent the abuse from happening - as of the permanently suspended accounts, 99 per cent of account owners were identifiable.
"Since our update in February, we've improved our proactive tools to identify racist abuse and removed just under 13,000 tweets - of which 95 per cent were identified proactively.
"Soon, we will be testing a new product feature that temporarily autoblocks accounts using harmful language.
"There is no place for racist abuse on Twitter. Our aim is always that Twitter be used as a vehicle for every person to communicate safely.
"We're determined to do all we can, along with our partners, to stop these abhorrent views and behaviours being seen on and off the platform."
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