Twitter publishes analysis of racist abuse that followed Euro football competition

Following the racist abuse against members of the England soccer team on the night of the final, Twitter automated tools identified and removed 1622 Tweets during the final and in the day after it. In total, more than 90% of the posts removed for abuse were detected proactively by the platform. The platform realized that 99% of the accounts suspended were not anonymous and came from all over the world. However, the UK was by far the largest country of origin for the racist Tweets. Twitter concluded that given most users were not anonymous, an ID verification would ‘have been unlikely to prevent the abuse from happening’.

The report released by the platform is part of an ongoing effort to combat racist abuse targeting the football community. Since February 2021, the platform has ‘heard directly the concerns shared by players and their representatives over several meetings’ and has participated in ‘Kick It Out’s Football Online Hate Working Group’.