Isn’t it time social media was brought under control - dreadful abuse after England football defeat.

I know celebrities have learned to ignore the many insults they receive. People like Caroline Flack? People should not have to put up with vile abuse, racist or otherwise, whatever their age. I have read lots of supportive posts on FB today, people trying to crowd out the nasty stuff. Also, a right wing comedian's career has crashed and burnt after he posted a vile comment, one akin to that posted by the Tory MP.

There is a petition on Change.org to ban anyone found guilty of racial abuse from football matches for life. Maybe that would hit the vile trolls where it hurts.

I do know of an example of a person who was temporarily banned for racist comments. Its nobody who is posting here now. I haven't seen them posting for many months.

The person who was banned, many people were asking where they were and why they were not posting.

I will say no more.

Online death threats and abuse are something that adults can and should choose to switch off and ignore. There are so many ignorant and nasty people spreading their poison, it's not something you should allow yourself to get upset about, and I know celebrities have learned to ignore the many insults they receive.

What concerns me much more are the children and young teenagers who are groomed and abused, told to send naked pictures and give out personal information, all sorts of dreadful things. They are too young to handle it or know better. That is far more concerning than some idiot posting stupid ignorant comments.

Callistemon

Alegrias1

I'm with WWM2 Serious question.

How do you all propose Social Media do this?

They delete offensive posts, they suspend accounts, they report the worst offenders to the authorities.

What else should they do?

Please bear your answer in mind next time a GNer gets banned from this platform and everyone wants them back.

Might I point out that in the case of posters being banned from GN and other posters requesting that they be allowed back:
No posters have ever, as far as I know, requested the return of any poster who posted racist or any other such offensive comments, nor would they.

To infer that is vile.

Do you have experience of anybody being banned from GransNet for racist comments?
If not I’d be more circumspect about where you fling your accusations, as it implies - not so disingenuously- that those who have been suspended in the past might have been guilty of such racist, offensive comments.
Speaking for Jingl and more recently the Doghouse Grans no way was this the case, so I would respectfully suggest you do not persist with this connection as it could be interpreted as slander.

True it is the www. It’s also not just a UK problem. The owners of the social platforms are known however and I suppose that is why they have been asked to control it. A victim can also take action themselves and report abuse or harassment to the police. In the case of children they often keep quiet and suffer in silence.

Perhaps the new bill will help address the problem or at least minimise it.

AmberSpyglass

But if it’s happening online, then it isn’t necessarily happening in the UK….

Quite true

It's not called the World Wide Web for nothing!

AmberSpyglass

But if it’s happening online, then it isn’t necessarily happening in the UK….

Watching the men in London, Wembley and elsewhere in the U.K. and listening to them booing the young lions as they take the knee, I would bet my last £ that the vast majority are English.

Alegrias1

I'm with WWM2 Serious question.

How do you all propose Social Media do this?

They delete offensive posts, they suspend accounts, they report the worst offenders to the authorities.

What else should they do?

Please bear your answer in mind next time a GNer gets banned from this platform and everyone wants them back.

Might I point out that in the case of posters being banned from GN and other posters requesting that they be allowed back:
No posters have ever, as far as I know, requested the return of any poster who posted racist or any other such offensive comments, nor would they.

To infer that is vile.

But if it’s happening online, then it isn’t necessarily happening in the UK….

I wonder if these faceless racists walk out of a surgery etc if there is an ethnic/black proffesional is about to treat them.
I think not.
Mindless hypocritcs.

"What’s unacceptable offline should be unacceptable online." @25Avalon I totally agree!

It is illegal to sell class A drugs, yet on Telegram they are advertised! They have teenagers on that site! I looked at their terms of service to see if I could report it, but the only thing they ban is porn! Tiktok has a Ketamine problem, yet these sites are used by loads of young people. I really believe that the laws and values of this country should be upheld online ad that any type of brainwashing or bullying should be exposed.

I have just done a safeguarding course for children i.e. anyone under the age of 18. 20%of 3 year olds apparently use a laptop and 30% suffer online abuse. Children under 13 should not have social media accounts but somehow they do. 40% of over 13’s will suffer online abuse at some time and even more if they are disabled.

This is why I wanted this thread to look at social media as it is quite a frightening phenomena where it is being used for these purposes which include but are not limited to racist abuse. We talk about freedom of speech but if you were to say or write some of the things you could be sued.

What’s unacceptable offline should be unacceptable online. I see there is an online Safety Bill (details on Uk Gov.website) being looked at right now. Ofcom will have a role to play. It will also include scammers such as romance scammers who chat people up online to extract money.

Yes,agreed, these cowards should be made accountable for what they post.

It would be ideal if people could be stopped from trying to control other people's medical decisions by spreading their opinions. It's their choice to go anon and use sites like Telegram or Parler, Tiktok etc but I am sure the government know exactly who these people are, especially the ones using those sites to sell class A drugs even though they do use proxies.

I think people should not be allowed to be racist or to spread false information.

So maybe turn your outrage into action and write something positive to counteract the negative and smile to yourself that YOU did some good. I completely agree. many people are doing this, bombarding the young men's social media accounts with positive messages.

People have a right to be anonymous on social media. What they don’t have is a right to express racist views and platforms have to crack down on this. And let’s not pretend it’s a social media problem - it’s a society problem.

I hope they're traced, and feel the full force of everyone's disgust.

I think people do it because they actually believe these things and it gives them a voice to express themselves that they might otherwise not have.

Instead of being outraged, I just realise everyone is different and I can’t control their words.
But I can control MY actions.
I can choose to scroll past and not give them a voice. If no-ones listening their words are meaningless.
So maybe turn your outrage into action and write something positive to counteract the negative and smile to yourself that YOU did some good.

Absolutely yes, it's time something positive was done to stop these low-life ignorant racists.

25Avalon

GillT57 stop hijacking my thread please. I don’t agree with taking the knee but that does not make me a racist. This thread is about all online abuse not just the vile racist remarks directed at our three young footballers. How do we stop people posting any kind of abuse on social media?

Woah! What merited that attack? Back off, I did not mention you in my comments about taking the knee, if you must know, I was meaning some of our politicians who seem incensed about it. You are extremely wrong and very rude. Good grief

Galaxy

I am more frightened of social media giants having more control over speech than a few ignorant racists. Imagine if trump owned a social media platform, would you be happy to have him control speech. I agree with Laura it's about education and an ongoing discussion about social media and what it is or isnt doing for our society.

This is the thing, isn't it?

If everyone were identifiable online, dictatorships would crush dissent, as they do in China and Saudi etc. Look at that case a few years ago when a man was sentenced to 1000 lashes for starting a blog.

Also, if the authorities could identify people, it would be a short step to extremists being able to do so too, and they could threaten anyone who spoke out against them. It's not straightforward at all.

I think that we should look at ways of making racism unacceptable (as happened with drink-driving and smoking indoors), so that people wouldn't want to post their bile. I know that racism is more ingrained than either of those examples, but if there were a will I think it could be done.

I am more frightened of social media giants having more control over speech than a few ignorant racists. Imagine if trump owned a social media platform, would you be happy to have him control speech. I agree with Laura it's about education and an ongoing discussion about social media and what it is or isnt doing for our society.

GillT57 stop hijacking my thread please. I don’t agree with taking the knee but that does not make me a racist. This thread is about all online abuse not just the vile racist remarks directed at our three young footballers. How do we stop people posting any kind of abuse on social media?

Like everyone else, I am disgusted by the vile racist bullies who picked on these young men, despicable. I was heartened to read on Fb this morning that there are thousands who have decided to try and track down these racist bullies and expose them. Good. Does anyone now think they should question why the English football team take the knee before matches?