New research has revealed a surge of online hate speech targeting athletes on social media.
Preliminary insights into a study led by Dublin City University shows a rise in homophobic language in UEFA Football Championships over a ten-year period.
The research involved the analysis of 10.5 million English language tweets related to six UEFA European football championships from 2012 to 2022.
The United Against Online Abuse (UAOA) in Sport Coalition held a forum in Dublin yesterday and heard that the online abuse of athletes at all levels and disciplines has reached disturbing levels.
The forum, hosted by international law firm Clark Hill in collaboration with the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, founders of the UAOA coalition, highlighted the growing epidemic of online hate speech targeting athletes.
A key proposal discussed amongst the attendees was the establishment, under the European Union Digital Services Act, of an international trusted flagger entity for sports organisations to fast-track complaints and take down notices of abusive comments that appear online.
Once established the online platforms would be required to agree protocols and processes for policing online abuse with the trusted flagger entity.
Delegates at the conference called for immediate action and said that Ireland is the obvious choice for such an international entity.
"Ireland has an experienced and robust regulatory and legal system with the expertise necessary," said Kirby Tarrant, Partner in Charge at Clark Hill.
"Dublin already hosts the EMEA headquarters for social media giants such as Google, Meta/Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn," Mr Tarrant said.
"Other very large online platforms have a major presence here also," he added.
The UAOA forum highlighted the urgent need for a unified approach to combating online abuse, aiming to protect the integrity of sport and the wellbeing of athletes.
"Imagine training your entire life for a dream only to be bombarded with threats and hate online. That's the reality for 75% of athletes today," stated Mohammed Ben Sulayem, President of the FIA and founder of the UAOA coalition.
The UAOA is a research-led coalition aiming to tackle the growing problem of online abuse and hate speech in sport.
DCU is the major research partner of the UAOA coalition and has produced a number of research reports.
