Fed Up With Online Violence, Premier League Players Plan To Boycott Social Media Next Week

Arsenal player, Nicolas Pepe (Instagram / @ arsenal)

JAKARTA - Football clubs in the UK will boycott social media next week in response to continued online violence directed at players.

The social media fast is held to coincide with match programs for both professional men's and women's leagues starting at 15.00 Friday, April 30 to 23.59 Monday, May 3 local time.

During the action of the Premier League clubs, the three divisions below (Championship to League Two), the Women's Super League and the second women's caste, which will shut down all their official Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts with demands from social media companies to take more active steps. in eradicating hate speech online.

"Racist behavior of any kind is unacceptable and the abhorrent violence experienced by players on social media must not continue," said Premier League CEO Richard Masters.

"The Premier League and its clubs stand with football in a boycott to emphasize the importance of social media companies playing a more active role in eliminating this racial hatred."

"We will continue to challenge the actions of social media companies and would like to see significant steps in their policies and actions to combat discriminatory violence online on their platforms," he added.

A number of Premier League players have in recent months been the target of online violence including Manchester United's Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford, Liverpool's Trent Alexander-Arnold and Sadio Mane and Chelsea defender Reece James.

Two second division teams or the Championship Division, Birmingham City and Swansea City, as well as Scottish champions Rangers recently staged a similar boycott for a week in response to racial attacks on their players.

Former Arsenal forward Thierry Henry last month admitted leaving social media for reasons of racism and bullying, while Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson gave his account to be managed by an online anti-bullying charity.

Last February, British football authorities sent an open letter to Facebook and Twitter urging them to block and take down offensive posts and improve the verification process for user registrations.

Instagram - which is owned by Facebook - has announced new moves and Twitter vows to continue its active action after cracking down on more than 700 cases of football-related violence in the United Kingdom in 2019.