Instagram has announced measures to tackle online abuse in the wake of the latest spate of racist attacks on footballers.
The Manchester United players Anthony Martial, Marcus Rashford, Axel Tuanzebe and Lauren James are among those subjected to racism on social media in the past fortnight alone.
A man was arrested during that period after Romaine Sawyers was sent what West Brom called an “abhorrent message”, and Chelsea’s full-back Reece James – brother of Lauren – was sent vile abuse via an Instagram direct message.
Instagram does not use technology to proactively detect content within private messages but it has announced new measures, including removing abusive accounts, in an attempt to reduce the abuse people get in direct messages.
Facebook’s content policy manager Fadzai Madzingira told the PA news agency: “I am horrified that they have to deal with that sort of abuse and as a company we take it very seriously.
“We’ve always had rules around people who abuse our community standards in Instagram direct messaging, specifically.
“Currently we will set a specific ban or what we call a block for a set amount of time when someone violates those rules and we extend that time should they continue to do so.
“What we’re announcing today is that we’re taking tougher measures on people who violate those rules in Instagram direct messaging, so instead of just extending the time, we’ll be removing the accounts altogether.
“That allows us to ensure that we have a lower tolerance for that sort of abuse in direct messaging and we’ll be closing those accounts more quickly in Instagram direct messaging than anywhere else on the platform.”
Instagram says it took action on 6.5million pieces of hate speech, including in direct messages, between July and September of last year, with 95% found before anyone had reported it.
The social media platform has underlined its commitment to working with UK law enforcement on such abuse, vowing to respond to valid legal requests for information. Preventing people from hiding behind anonymous accounts has been repeatedly mentioned within football as a way of holding people to account for abuse.
Asked whether backend identification was feasible, Madzingira said: “I personally understand where the frustration comes from and the desire for people to ‘need to use government IDs before they can open an account’.
“It is a debate we’ve had internally. There are a lot of difficulties – and not on a cost side – a lot of difficulties in terms of access when you think about who has identification and who doesn’t.”
Madzingira pointed to the example of how difficult it was to get hardcopy identification growing up in Zimbabwe, as well as the disproportionate impact on other groups.
from Football | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2OoxYkK
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