West Ham manager Manuel Pellegrini has warned “Social media must be careful.” adding that “Some rules in the future must come in this case.”
The manager was speaking at this afternoon’s Rush Green press conference to reporters today where he was asked about his view on Paul Pogba racism incident.
Twitter have agreed to meet Manchester United and Kick It Out following online racist abuse directed at Pogba. The Frenchman became the third player in a week to be racially abused on social media following a penalty miss.
Several of Pogba’s team-mates criticised the abuse, while England women’s manager Phil Neville called for footballers to “boycott” social media.
In a statement, Twitter said: “We have always maintained an open and healthy dialogue with our partners in this space, but we know we need to do more to protect our users. Racist behaviour has no place on our platform and we strongly condemn it.
“Over the the next few weeks, Twitter representatives will meet with Manchester United, Kick It Out and any other civil society stakeholders interested in hearing about the proactive work Twitter is doing to address online racist abuse towards certain footballers in the UK.
“To this end, we look forward to working more closely with our partners to develop shared solutions to this issue.”
If I was running a club, I’d ban social media. Not quite sure how it helps clubs or players. Lets not pretend it’s staying connected to fans, most footballers posts are not even written by them. Do fans need to see “Not good enough, great fans, we go again” or some other template tweet? Likewise, is it really beneficial for players to read all the mountains of abuse they get for not playing well? Not sure how it helps anyone. The clubs having social media as a promotional tool is fine, footballers shouldn’t have it.
As for the abuse. I hope Twitter also make an effort to trawl through their piles of needless drivel and make a big deal regarding all racist abuse, not just the stuff directed at wealthy sportsman. Perhaps Harry Maguire is right, Twitter accounts should have to be connected to a passport or some form of ID. I don’t use any social media so that wouldn’t bother me and I’m not sure why it should bother anybody else who is a reasonable human being.