FIFA To Tailor Social Media Protection Service For Women’s World Cup

The world governing body, FIFA, is aiming to monitor all social media activity during this summer’s Women’s World Cup to help eradicate what it calls “a social crisis” which is affecting the mental health of its players.

Following the successful implementation of their own Social Media Protection Service (SMPS) at the men’s World Cup in Qatar last year, FIFA are committed to using the same monitoring procedures at this year’s Women’s World Cup, promising to cover the full cost of the service for all long as it is required.

Each of the 32 participating member associations taking part at the ninth FIFA Women’s World Cup finals starting on July 20 will be offered access to the service with the invitation extended to all 736 players once the final 23-player squads are confirmed. FIFA claim several participating nations have already agreed to implement the moderation element of the service to immediately and automatically limit visibility of online abuse.

During the men’s World Cup, FIFA have revealed that over 20 million social media posts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube were scanned. Of those 19,636 posts were identified as abusive, discriminatory, or threatening with a peak occurring during the England v France quarter-final in which Harry Kane missed a late penalty.

Of all those flagged comments, over a quarter were classified as general abuse (26.24%) with 13.47 identified as sexist and 12.16% homophobic. For the Women’s World Cup, FIFA is preparing to develop and strengthen categories specifically to protect female players by undertaking a “detailed analysis of slurs and abusive

comments historically targeted at women’s

football.”

To do this they will “work with players, ex-players and experts to analyse and verify terms and filters, including new weaponised emojis and identified tactics” as well as engage with officials and representatives from the two host nations, Australia and New Zealand to “incorporate nuanced regional issues.”

As well as sanctioning monitoring of a social media account, where FIFA will work with social media platforms on swift removal of abusive comments, an individual player can

opt-in to moderation of their account during the tournament which

allows abusive, discriminatory or threatening

content to be detected and hidden in real time.

FIFA insist that “the central goal of these services is to protect players, teams, officials and fans from abuse, keeping their social feeds free from hate and allowing them to focus on enjoying their part in FIFA events.”

12,168 social media accounts were identified as posting abusive comments during the men’s World Cup. Of those, all were reported to their respective platforms and 1,189 were considered as tier 1, worthy of jurisdictional law enforcement action within the relevant nation. 306 individuals were verifiably identified and work is being done to compile evidence packs to build cases against those who have passed the criminal threshold.

Last year, the European governing body, UEFA launched a similar campaign against online abuse called Real Scars supported by France’s Wendie Renard and Switzerland’s Alisha Lehmann. As part of a pilot scheme they monitored social media comments during last summer’s UEFA Women’s Euro – where 60 per cent of the 447 comments flagged were removed by the respective platforms – and also at April’s Finalissima between England and Brazil.

There, they flagged 83 comments as abusive with 12 in the most severe tier. The identified posts were classified as hate speech (78%), sexism (21%) and homophobia (1%). 65% of these posts were directed at women’s soccer in general, while 21% were directed at the players.

On the United Nations Day for Countering Hate Speech, the global union for players, FIFPRO explained how comments on social media can have a negative effect on a player’s mental health. “Abusive comments are personal attacks on the identities and characteristics of players that can have detrimental effects on their overall well-being and can also lead them to hide and withdraw from who they are and want to be.”

They added that “footballers

can feel discouraged to admit feeling impacted by social media abuse and may choose to act as if all is well with

them”, a self-protetive strategy which leads to them not addressing the problem nor seeking the support they require.

FIFPRO’s analysis of the mental health toll on players concluded that social media abuse can lead to a range of real world consequences and symptoms such as anxiety attacks

, depression, accumulation of trauma

, low self-worth, sleep disturbances, change in eating patterns, feelings of inadequacy

, social withdrawal and isolation

and in extreme cases, death by suicide.