Michael Regan / AFP
Message against racism on Brighton’s shirt, which faced Sheffield United for the English Championship on Saturday (24)
English football will boycott Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for four days starting next Friday (30). The initiative, released on Saturday (24), is a protest as clubs, federations, players’ unions and fans believe that platforms are too few to fight racism.
The action related to the English Federation (FA), the Premier League (which organizes the division), the EFL (the English Football League, responsible for the 2nd to 4th Division tournaments), the two main women’s competitions and six other institutions. , Fans and non-governmental organizations that fight discrimination in sports.
This means that club and federation accounts will not be updated next weekend. In Premier League matches, 20 teams will be involved. Only Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool have 478 million followers spread across three social networks.
In February this year, the organizations sent a joint letter to the platforms including more agility in removing racist posts and comments, better filters to avoid this type of content and more ability to expel users. He asked Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to work closely with the police to identify and prosecute those responsible for racist messages.
“While some progress has been made, we reiterate these requests today in an effort to reduce the relentless flow of discriminatory messages and ensure that there are real consequences for those responsible,” the statement said.
The clubs, federations and institutions that have signed the manifesto also ask the UK government to speed up the presentation of a bill that makes social media responsible for the content posted, as well as responding to it in court Can.
“The Premier League and our clubs join football to drive this boycott to highlight the urgent need for social networks to exclude racial hatred. We are critical in their conduct policies and procedures for dealing with their discriminatory crimes Want to see improvement. Said Richard Masters, CEO of Premier Platform.
