Swansea City to boycott social media in fight against ‘abhorrent abuse’

The Championship membership has written to Mark Zuckerberg, the founding father of Facebook, which owns Instagram, and Jack Dorsey, the chief govt of Twitter, to demand harder punishments for these responsible of “cowardly abuse that has sadly become far too common”.

Last Friday Jamal Lowe grew to become the third Swansea participant in lower than two months to be subjected to racial abuse on Instagram. South Wales police launched investigations after Yan Dhanda was abused in February and Ben Cabango in March. Dhanda accused Facebook of being “selfish” and criticised the corporate’s inaction.

In an announcement, Swansea mentioned: “We have seen several of our players subjected to abhorrent abuse in the past seven weeks alone, and we feel it is right to take a stand against behaviour that is a blight on our sport, and society at large.

“We will always be unwavering in our support of our players, staff, supporters and the community trust that we proudly represent, and we are united as a club on this issue. We also want to stand with players from other clubs who have had to endure vile discrimination on social media platforms. We hope our strong stance will highlight the wider effects of abuse.”

On Tuesday the Liverpool trio Trent Alexander-Arnold, Naby Keïta and Sadio Mané have been subjected to online racial abuse, main their membership to name for “the strongest possible preventative measures”.

Swansea mentioned they have been “acutely aware of how social media can impact on the mental health of players and staff” and the membership captain, Matt Grimes, mentioned the toll of abuse shouldn’t be underestimated. Swansea paid tribute to the help of the English Football League, which additionally criticised the platforms’ “inaction” in an open letter.

“As a close and diverse group of players, this is something we all feel extremely passionate about,” Grimes mentioned of the boycott. “We wanted to take this stance as we again call on those at the forefront of social media companies to implement the change that is needed now and in the future. I find it staggering that we are still talking about racism and abuse of this kind. We are acutely aware of the pressures within football at this level, but it shouldn’t be underestimated as to how such levels of abuse can affect someone.”