Social media platforms have been inundated with racist messages and posts directed at three Black players on England\u2019s football team, following a tough loss to Italy on Sunday in the UEFA Euro 2020 championship match. The two teams played to a 1-1 tie, and Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, and Bukayo Saka were among England\u2019s players to participate in a penalty shootout to decide the winner of the match and the tournament. All three missed their shots. <\/p>\n
After the game ended, the players\u2019 social media accounts, including Facebook-owned Instagram and Twitter, were filled with racist comments and messages. <\/p>\n
In an email to The Verge<\/em> on Monday, a Twitter spokesperson said the \u201cabhorrent, racist abuse directed at England players\u201d had no place on the platform. Since the end of Sunday\u2019s game, Twitter removed more than 1,000 tweets and permanently suspended a number of accounts \u2014 the spokesperson did not say how many \u2014 for violating its rules against harassment and hateful content. \u201cWe 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 \u2014 both online and offline,\u201d the spokesperson said. <\/p>\n A Facebook spokesperson said the company didn\u2019t have numbers to share, but said the platform \u201cquickly removed comments and accounts directing abuse at England\u2019s footballers last night and we\u2019ll continue to take action against those that break our rules.\u201d The spokesperson added that the company had encouraged all players to turn on Instagram\u2019s hidden words tool, which prevents abuse or comments from being visible in direct messages.<\/p>\n Vice<\/em> reported that even more extreme abuse, including threats against the players, was turning up on white supremacist channels on Telegram, which has much looser moderation policies than Twitter or Facebook. Telegram didn\u2019t immediately reply to a request for comment Monday. <\/p>\n England\u2019s Football Association said in a statement Monday that it was \u201cappalled by the online racism that has been aimed at some of our England players on social media.\u201d Anyone behind the \u201cdisgusting\u201d behavior is not welcome as a fan, the FA said, adding it was supporting the players \u201cwhile urging the toughest punishments possible for anyone responsible.\u201d <\/p>\n The FA statement added that social media companies \u201cneed to step up and take accountability and action to ban abusers from their platforms, gather evidence that can lead to prosecution and support making the platforms free from this type of abhorrent abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n England\u2019s players were frequently booed by fans at Wembley Stadium during the tournament when the players kneeled on the field before matches as an anti-racism gesture. Both teams kneeled before the start of Sunday\u2019s match, as well. <\/p>\n UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was criticized for previously failing to defend the players who kneeled before games, tweeted Monday that the players \u201cdeserve to be lauded as heroes, not racially abused on social media.\u201d <\/p>\n \n Related\n <\/p>\n Social media platforms have been inundated with racist messages and posts directed at three…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[38,64,62,66,63,65,69,67,71,68,70],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1560"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1560"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2020,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1560\/revisions\/2020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Social media companies \u201cneed to step up and take accountability,\u201d the Football Association said<\/q><\/aside>\n
SB Nation: The racism aimed at Bukayo Saka, Jadon Sancho, and Marcus Rashford was not a surprise<\/h4>\n<\/aside>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"