FIFPro analyzed who insults football players and how

The International Association of Professional Football Players (FIFPro) reported on the effectiveness of the implementation of the system, which the organization calls the “Social Media Protection Service” (Social Media Protection Service, SMPC). The meaning of its existence is to monitor, subsequently notify the relevant structures and, as quickly as possible, remove offensive comments or messages on social networks that are targeted by football players. The FIFPro report focuses on data from the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. It claims that more than 19,000 offensive social media posts were exposed during the World Cup, and almost 290,000 more were not published or were hidden very quickly thanks to the work of the SMPC.

International Association of Professional Football Players made public report (.pdf), in which she reported on the effectiveness of the Social Media Protection Service, a system for protecting football players and other persons involved in holding games, implemented jointly with the International Football Federation (FIFA) and with the assistance of the main social networks of the planet (Facebook, Instagram, owned by Meta, which is recognized extremist and banned in the Russian Federation; TikTok, Twitter, YouTube), from attacks on social networks. The automated system scanned the accounts of the world championship participants and, in case of detection of comments that the robot considered inappropriate (there were 434,000 of them), it notified the moderators of the relevant social networks, who made the final decision. In total, 864 players and coaches were monitored (taking into account the fact that many are registered in more than one network, it turned out to be 1688 accounts), 129 official accounts, accounts of 32 teams participating in the championship and profiles of 45 former players.

An analysis of the data received by the system showed that racist insults to football players are still popular among fans. More than 300 football players faced such problems.

True, the main shaft of racist passions was concentrated only on a few top players. It was also confirmed that among football fans there is an aversion to homosexuality. In addition, it is reported that the intensity of passions grew as the tournament progressed – at the decisive stages, the degree of hatred increased. True, it was often of a momentary nature. Let’s say that this or that player could become the object of increased negative attention after not scoring a penalty. In the future, negative comments addressed to him returned to the usual level.

In total, the system tracked 20 million posts and comments. Over 300,000 were deemed ineligible. Of these, almost 290 thousand were hidden within 24 hours, and another 19.6 thousand of the most aggressive were not published at all or deleted almost immediately after the appearance. During the monitoring, 12.6 thousand accounts were identified, from which the content considered prohibited was actively distributed.

Most often, negative content was posted on Twitter. Following FIFA’s appeals, the social network deleted almost 23% of the tracked posts and comments. There were about 13 thousand of them. More than 5 thousand messages were deleted on Instagram, 979 on Facebook, 113 on YouTube, and 69 on TikTok.

The FIFPro report provides data on what kind of insults most often fell to the lot of participants in the world championship. Nothing sensational FIFPro found out.

10.7% of the insults were made on the basis of racism, 13.5% were classified as sexist statements, 17% related to sexual relations in general, in 12% of cases commentators showed dislike for homosexuals.

But most often, in 26% of cases, people issued curses that could not be attributed to any of the fashionable categories in the era of the triumph of tolerance and inclusiveness.

The FIFPro report also provides data on the geography of violations and a timeline of the peaks of attacks on player participants. Most often, accounts related to Europe and South America were convicted of violating the rules (38% and 36%, respectively). In third place is Asia – 10%, 8% each in North America and Africa. It is also interesting that the volume of Internet hatred during the World Cup reached its peak not during the final of the championship (in which Argentina beat France in a crazy confrontation), but during the quarterfinal match between England and France, in which the French won with a score of 2:1.

Alexander Petrov