Challenge
Online hate in sports has reached unprecedented levels of abuse, especially in England’s Premier League. After each match, abuse spills out from stadiums onto social media, putting fan communities and players at risk. Concerned football clubs are fighting back.
One club’s social media channels attract millions of comments, mostly from fans. However, bad actors can quickly overwhelm those social media channels with harmful content, especially during match days, holidays and special events.
The speed and scale of digital chatter, especially in sports, makes it near-impossible for clubs to separate online abuse from benign fan interactions. For example, this football club saw over 12 million comments on their pages over six months, with huge concentrations during key events.
Solution
The Premier League football club selected Resolver to protect its fan communities and players from online harms. Working with the club’s leader of equality, diversity and inclusion and its social media team, Resolver discovered and tracked the risk signals embedded within digital chatter that posed a threat.
Using its Social Defense and VIP Defense solutions, Resolver removed harmful content from the club’s fan communities within minutes, and delivered real-time alerts of online threats to the safety or wellbeing of its players, so that security personnel could be notified.
The solution provided by Resolver is not only stopping online abuse, it’s also extending the club’s insights on bad actors and their harmful behaviors. Combining online and offline information is key in the efforts being put in place to make the sport a safer experience for everyone.
Outcome
Within one year’s time, Resolver discovered and removed over 85,000 items of abuse or hate speech aimed at players and fans. It has enabled the football club to keep its fan communities and players safe, especially when online abuse skyrockets during high-profile matches.
Such was the case at a specific match, when the club stood proudly alongside the LGBTQ+ Stonewall FC in promoting equality and diversity. Resolver discovered and removed 8,531 acts of hate or abuse online targeting fans and players. This represented a 1,547% increase vs non-match days.
Resolver continues to deliver fast, actionable risk intelligence to protect the football club’s fan communities and its players. With Resolver, the club is always first to know and first to act.
