Instagram has announced new measures to tackle online abuse in the wake of the latest spate of sickening racist attacks on footballers.
Manchester United players Anthony Martial, Marcus Rashford, Axel Tuanzebe and Lauren James are among those to have been subjected to racism on social media in the last fortnight alone.
A man was arrested during that period after Romaine Sawyers was sent what West Brom called an “abhorrent message”, while Chelsea full-back Reece James – brother of Lauren – was sent vile abuse via an Instagram direct message.
Instagram does not use technology to proactively detect content within private messages but it has announced new measures, including removing abusive accounts, in a bid to reduce the abuse people get in direct messages.
Fadzai Madzingira, content policy manager at Facebook, which owns Instagram, told the PA news agency: “I am horrified that they have to deal with that sort of abuse and as a company we take it very seriously.
“We’ve always had rules around people who abuse our community standards in Instagram direct messaging, specifically.
“Currently we will set a specific ban or what we call a block for a set amount of time when someone violates those rules and we extend that time should they continue to do so.
“What we’re announcing today is that we’re taking tougher measures on people who violate those rules in Instagram direct messaging, so instead of just extending the time, we’ll be removing the accounts altogether.
“That allows us to ensure that we have a lower tolerance for that sort of abuse in direct messaging and we’ll be closing those accounts more quickly in Instagram direct messaging than anywhere else on the platform.”
Stopping individuals from seeing abusive content in direct messages is challenging, given they are private conversations, but business and creator accounts have the option to turn off messages from people they do not know.
One Premier League club told the PA news agency it welcomed the new measures but hopes more can be done.
“All clubs will welcome any initiatives by the social media companies on measures to clamp down on the disgusting abuse that is happening on their platforms,” the club said.
“Everyone recognises this will take collaboration and dialogue so the more we can work with the platforms and the governing bodies on a unified approach, the better.
“It does seem that a line in the sand for them is the issue of verified accounts and really they are the only ones that can address this.
“We are all used to having to produce some form of identification to register for things in our day-to-day lives.
“If doing that prevents anonymous abusers from behaving this way online then the social companies should be addressing that on top of the other work they are doing.”
Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden echoed those sentiments, saying this was a positive step but that more needs to be done.
“For too long the world’s most popular and powerful social media companies have failed to tackle the stream of horrific racist attacks on their platforms,” Dowden said in a statement released to PA.
“I welcome Instagram’s improved policies but racist abuse is still a fact of life for too many people and more has to be done across the board to stamp it out.
“We’re introducing a new age of accountability for these companies through our upcoming Online Safety Bill and this could see huge fines for firms which fail to clearly and transparently protect their users.”
