in may the footballing world, with support from across sport, used its voice — by staying silent on social media. the boycott was the latest attempt at tackling the racist abuse suffered by black and asian players. nesta mcgregor spoke to victims, social media companies and those charged with cleaning up the sport. this was his report first broadcast back in the spring. this programme contains racist language and content some may find offensive. they are not fans, they are racists. it makes you feel very dehumanised. you feel like nothing. there is nothing you can do. you are helpless. the weekend saw more racist abuse of players online. - the amount of times we are seeing troy deeney or raheem or even myself report things, nothing has been done about it. we're humans and it is a throwaway comment to you, but when i open my phone and see myself being called this and that for no reason, it does affect you. racism and bullying across platforms. . racially abused on social media. things like i look like a monkey orjust saying the n word, everything that i'm getting now, i have heard it all before. i have had death threats put- at my six—year—old girls who have nothing to do with anything, and it is constant. _ i see a lot of statements. i see a lot of we're going to do this, we're going to do that. but i played 20 years. when i arrived in the game and when i left the game, things didn't change too much. bleep sterling, jesse lingard. jesse lingard! football, the most popular sport on the plant, responsible for moments of magic leading to elation and adoration. yet the players who produce those continue to be involved in a long—standing battle with racism. as stadiums were left empty, that struggle seemed to shift to online. we hear from the victims. those trying to clean up the game. until we start having honest conversations about what racism looks like and what we need to do to address it, we are going to be back here again in 20 years�* time. and from the platform described as a vessel for hate. this is not about profit and it is not about money, it is about keeping people safe on our platforms. why is the abuse happening? what are the consequences? racism is a problem centuries old, but football's battle with it seems to be at a pivotal stage. before we talk about the present or the future, the past plays an important role. the origins of the abuse we see today can be traced back to slavery and the subsequent and ongoing fight for equality. previously, the n word used in the street was to degrade. today it can be found in the comments section of a post. previously, black people were considered subhuman, kidnapped from their homes, taken to far—away countries, caged and displayed alongside animals. today, emojis in a direct message express that same opinion, posing as banter. it is deeply offensive. all: there is no room for racism. over the years we have seen initiatives backed by slogans and banners. football's most recent attempt to combat racism was a four—day social media boycott. no room for racism. for those involved, the message they were trying to send out was always going to outweigh what would change as a result. it sends a warning to these companies, if you do not start regulating your platform, it is going to be an indefinite blackout. so you have seen with in terms of copyright infringements, if you post a video and it is against copyright laws, not only does the video get deleted, but your account gets suspended, your account may even get deleted, because that could bring lawsuits upon these companies and like i say, it is affecting their bottom line and they do not want that, so hopefully the people in high places will sit up and start to take notice and finally take action. when i was younger, i probably read every comment, good or bad. i was naive, inexperienced, and it probably did have an effect. i have been through everything as a player, as a person, so i know now if i have a bad game, if i have an indifferent game, if my team lose, i stay off twitter, i do not read the comments. twitter was kind of back in the day a great way to interact with fans. we never had that platform before. i used to have great interaction with fans, but unfortunately now, you have started to see players either not going on it, either employing media companies to handle their socials for them because of that constant abuse that we are facing. professional football is a job that comes with a high level of scrutiny. fans are always looking for ways to get under a player's skin, but clearly there is a line and that is crossed when it is about the colour of that skin. you're telling me i'm a poor player, you are telling me i am having a rubbish game, you're telling me i'm not good enough to play for your club, all of these things are obviously hurtful in a footballing way, but when you bring my colour into it, it goes way beyond football, because before i am a footballer, before i am marvin bartley, before anything else, i'm a black man. i was actually warming up at a game. probably the worst video i have seen of someone racially abusing someone else and it happened to be me that was being racially abused. an act of a coward zooming in on me, racially abusing me and posting it to their social media platform. chases onto this, she's got good| pace and she's used it brilliantly! how good was that - from rinsola babajide? with me, i've just been on social media for the longest time so i kind of know what happens out there and i have experienced racism, sexism, any of that, for the longest time. what kind of language or messages do you receive? just things like i look like a monkey orjust putting an emoji out there which i think is big enough, just saying the n word, saying women should not be playing football, that it is a man's sport. you get racial abuse not only aimed at myself, but at my partner, and my children. i have had death threats put at my six—year—old girls who have nothing to do with anything. yeah, and it is constant and to put it this way, you're talking daily now. not every time you have a bad game or there is an emotional uproar, it is daily. when you're reading things like about my daughters that say "i hope that n dies," that is very difficult for me to read and also not to react, because also from the other side of the coin we have to not react. we are in a privileged position, but if we react on a human level, we are now the ones that will get for our reactions. you see these social media companies actually advertising "no _ to racism," kick it out, - but when actually push comes to shove and it is actually- the reality and people are sending racist messages, they are actually | doing next to nothing and for me, i i think they're just adding fire i to the hay and proving to the racist people that they can - actually get away with it. now, watching football matches and seeing players of colour make mistakes that lead to a goal or whatever, i know what is coming, i know they will be racially abused. i was actually racially abused the other day and i laughed because i knew it was coming. my football club screen shotted it, sent it to instagram and basically reported it and instagram said they did not see a problem with what was said and i was called the n word. if instagram do not see a problem with that word, someone describing me in that way, how are we ever going to fix this? according to kick it out, last season there was a 42% rise in reports of abuse in the professional game. the antiracism charity claims racial abuse was up by more than 53%. the way black and asian players are being abused might be new, but the abuse itself is not, and with the spotlight now on social media companies, there are those who believe that is a distraction from what is really going on. even before the lockdown kicked in, we were seeing significant increases in reported incidents based on discrimination. this is notjust online, the fact that we have not been in grounds and we have not had grassroots football, i think is hiding the fact that this is a problem in society. certainly over the last three or four years, the toxic discussion through brexit in that period have led to real polarisations around issues, particularly the issues of race and i think we are seeing the result of that now. thousands of hundreds of people at a stadium chanting abuse at a black player, for example, has declined and it has become more individualised and isolated. but that does not mean those viewpoints have necessarily gone away, but in large parts of this country, football is probably the only bits of diversity we actually see, so therefore we can start to say this is our team, this is our players, how can we have this conversation? we spent months arguing about the various merits of taking the knee, blm, are they a political organisation, are they not a political organisation? and we have missed completely the substance which is discrimination really in the uk and what can we do to tackle it? first and foremost you need to know that throughout history, kneeling with their fists in the air was a peaceful gesture and hope for change, right? but at one point, i felt like the people were more interested about shall we kneel or stand than about the cause. it is not really the big picture here. the big picture is about the cause and what is changing. what are you going to do? what are the actions? i did not see, personally, a lot of people are talking about it we are raising awareness, we are trying to change things and everybody seems to understand what is happening and wanting things to change, but technically for me, it is not so much about the kneeling or the standing, it is about what is next. what are the actions? where are we going? what about the big guns at the top, the guys that are supposed to be in charge of everything? i do not hear them talk a lot. i've seen a lot of statements, a lot of we're going to do this or we are going to do that, but i played 20 years. when i arrived in the game and when i left the game, things didn't change too much. we have got footballers taking the knee over — we have got footballers taking the knee over something _ we have got footballers taking the knee over something they - we have got footballers taking the knee over something they believe | knee over something they believe should _ knee over something they believe should not— knee over something they believe should not have _ knee over something they believe should not have happened. - we are still, we are in 2021, a0 years since the brixton riots, we are still not having honest discussions about race in this country. the government is still not having a conversation about structural racism. i think we have got a problem. i think we have gone back 20 years from a societal perspective and we're going to have to reconstruct how we really talk about and address issues of discrimination in the uk. for a second season, taking the knee is currently an act seen before all premier league games, although some clubs in the lower divisions have stopped the antiracism protest. wilfried zaha is the only top—flight player to stop, citing he is still regularly racially abused and that the gesture has done little to ease the problem. there are also those who believe football has shown if it wants to solve an issue, it does have the power to do so. take the european super league. can you imagine how wonderful this world would be if everybody motorised themselves like that for racism, inequality? every fan came together and done what they did, can you imagine what it would be like if we could do the same thing for racism? what's different? the only thing that is different is that there is no money to be gained from stopping racism, because obviously, if there was, it would probably be eradicated. although led by the premier league, the social media boycott was backed by other major sports, but athletes being racially abused online does appear to be more prevalent in football. that could be simply because more black people are in the game. we could almost take the account of any black or asian footballer at random. this one belongs to raheem sterling, just over 7.5 million followers. when he posts, thousands of comments, and unfortunately, some are racist. we reported the comments to instagram. 72 hours later, they are still there. despite the rise in cases, convictions are rare. earlier this year, ian wright spoke out after an 18—year—old man was placed on probation but not given a criminal record after sending the former england striker racially abusive messages. so the outcome of the court case, what would have been the ideal scenario for you? like i say, i do not want him to go... i know you do not want him to go to prison. some community service, some education on racism, do you know what i mean? that's what you want. and people say, education, people should know better, their parents should know better, they don't and they don't know better, but that is what you want. so then this guy, who has done this today, why should he not do that in his mind? because he is feeling there are no consequences. when you see that? you have seen what that guy said to me. what do you think of that? i see it is happening more and more on social media. no way ever would anyone ever come up to you in the street and say that. that language is... it's disgusting. the thing about it is, al, it makes you feel very dehumanised. you feel like nothing. there's nothing you can do, you are helpless. later this year, a 49—year—old man from the west midlands will go on trial accused of racially abusing romaine sawyers. the west brom midfielder received an offensive message after losing a game against manchester city. there has been an increase, but i think it would be a mistake to separate the real world, if you like, from the virtual world, because before lockdown, we were seeing probably over the last four seasons, an increase in hate crime in stadiums. i think one of the hypotheses was that people were engaging in the sort of language on social media, on the internet, that they would not normally have engaged in in real life and that was then reaching over into the stadiums. one of the issues we sometimes face, the offenders are often in a different country, so we will try and engage with countries to see if they will prosecute. the other block that we have been finding is getting the information from the social media companies, so for us, some of the offences will be under the malicious communications act. some of those we need to lay a summons or a charge within six months. now, on occasions, it has taken us six months orjust short of to get a response from a social media company about who has done this, who's the owner? and often by the time they get round to it, the account has been deleted. it is a chicken and egg situation in that we need to get the confidence of players so that they come forward to support the prosecution so that we can take them through the system so that there can be an outcome so that players can feel confident that if they do support prosecution there will be something tangible. we are starting to see some progress, which is good news, so, certainly with facebook and instagram. twitter, we are a bit behind in, but again we are starting to have some really positive engagement. now, we are hopeful that will progress as well. the government, meanwhile, is aiming to do its part by introducing new laws. if passed, the media regulator 0fcom would be able to fine companies millions of pounds or even block access to sites. almost half of the world is on social media, sending billions and billions of messages every day. the majority are not abusive, so when it comes to racism, why are these platforms, some just over ten years old, being asked to play such a major role in eradicating it? when contacted, platforms like facebook, which owns instagram, and the bosses of twitter, repeat the message that they are committed to tackling all forms of online abuse. instagram recently introduced new tools allowing users greater control over who can privately message them. this is not about profit, it is not about money. it is about keeping people safe on our platforms. we have been working on some of these tools for a very long time based on the feedback we have received from footballers and creators. regardless of any calls for boycotts. how many times are you allowed to be racist on instagram before you are removed from it? we spend a lot of time dealing with the adversarial actions of bad actors on the platform and have entire teams dedicated to doing so, but we definitely want to ensure that we are removing accounts that are repeatedly violating our community standards. just on that issue of copyright, if someone posts highlight clips of the premier league or whatever it is, within minutes that is removed. british—based footballer rinsola babajide posted some pictures of some boots, underneath got a torrent of abuse. she then told through her instagram stories how she reported it. 2a hours, it was still there. is more leverage or more resources being given when money is involved rather than emotions and people's feelings? content that is reported for hate speech, we often will require human review in order to take into account context, so in many cases, when hate speech is shared, it does violate our community standards, but in some cases, someone has shared it because they wanted to raise awareness of what has happened to them or it is the use of a slur but it is by a reclaimed community and in those cases, we need a reviewer to be able to make the distinction, and that is a little bit different from what might be blatant violations such as copyright. i agree with that, apologies for interrupting, but the exact comment was, "football belongs to men, you monkey." and it had a banana and monkey emoji. it is clear the intent there. if the question is why don't you remove every single instance of any of these terms, it is context matters and especially when you are in a oppressed community or oppressed minority, you want to have the ability to speak about these issues and to raise awareness, to tell people things that have happened to you, or to reclaim that speech. and then it becomes incredibly important that if we are removing all of that, it is a double oppression on those groups, because not only has that speech been used against them, now tech companies are removing their ability to even be able to speak about it. whether the accounts sending the hateful messages are racist at their core may be up for debate, but what is certain is the impact it has on those who receive it. that video reduced me to tears on numerous occasions, because even though i was a fully grown man, still hearing yourself described in that way, still hearing the effect it has on yourfamily members, for me, especially my mum, was heartbreaking. it has probably taken me a good 18 months to get away from thinking about that twice a week. the people sending me things will never understand, they will never understand how much they hurt. genuinely. it is so upsetting. you should not feel that feeling of being scared, | he was scared to look at this comment. - why? why someone should feel like that i and be like that to look at this . comment when it should be, i ok, i understand the freedom of speech, people can i say whatever they want, but you cannot cross the line for sure. - in the street you cannot cross the line, although you can - say whatever you want, . you cannot cross the line. just more exhausted and boring now, seeing it over and over again. everything that i'm getting now, i've heard it all before, sort of thing, on social media. it has come to a point when you are just numb to it? it does not hurt you? or it still affects you? sometimes it can affect me a bit where i have to report it to my agent or my psychologist or pr team and stuff so they can actually make sure something happens, but i have reported things so many times where it literallyjust gets flagged up where itjust gets ignored and nothing bigger actually happens, where they can remove the account or remove the comment or make sure itjust does not happen again. finally, we are finding our voices, we are speaking up. if we feel like we do not agree with something, we are starting speak up as a community. people do not like it, they can see that they are getting under our skin by making these comments and then you have other people making more comments, and i think that is what we are facing at the minute. we are facing resistance to players starting to fight back. it is sad and it is graphic, - but somebody is going to take their own life from it, i'm telling you now. i some people are not privy to some of the conversations i have had - and some of the people i've spoken to and the emotional— roller—coaster that these people | are going through and how much they are struggling, - because without all this, the pressure of football. and performing and people judging your every move because you are live - on the television, i without all of that, adding this into the mix. i have a really good _ supportive network around me, but some of these players won't have it and i've said this before, _ there will be a player - that is already struggling with their mental health and these things and something like this, - a message like this or a video like this will send _ them over the edge. people will say that i is quite extreme, i'm telling you it is coming. i'm talking about the elite | players, players at the top of their profession already playing at the top level— of english football. it is notjust the players. antiracism charities and the police are urging social media companies to do more. criticism also comes from companies who claim to have the technology to help out. we are not the silver bullet, but part of what sportradar can do, we can give or we can help the victims to feel less helpless. so the first thing is to identify the troll, and this is also good for the mental health of a victim, that this is not an anonymous abuse, now i have a name, i have a telephone number, e—mail address, ip address. second thing is with this information, a victim can go to social media and say, ok, this is a troll, this is the evidence, please block him. the third layer is you can also use this evidence to go to police and law enforcement. my team of investigators come from the world of police and law enforcement. we cooperate in different areas with interpol, europol, with national police forces. sportradar is a network and we have the understanding of how to treat this and this is our proposal. the return of fans to stadium after covid restrictions are eased will be an interesting next phase in this debate. we are concerned that as fans come back into stadiums we are going to see that increase continue, and one of the noticeable things we have found is that when we had some reduced capacity games because of covid, it was actually that people could be heard more, as you could have individual voices in the crowd who were carrying and you could hear that personal abuse of a player or an official. so i think as we move back and some of the stadiums are partially full, there is the risk that individuals will be able to make themselves heard with this type of abuse, so i think there is a concern that as we move back to hopefully normality in football, this will be an ongoing issue. football fans have a role to play in talking about the kind - of behaviours that should be - acceptable of football fans in 2021, and where they are not i meeting those standards, then take a stand. we are in denial of a lot i of the racism that happens in society and in football by very definition. - it is tough to see what they are going through, although it is great to see players like marcus and raheem have the confidence to address the situations because in my younger days i would not have had the confidence to address it, but yes, you are thankful that people like that have paved the way for the next generation. football fans have a role to play in talking about the kind - of behaviours that should be - acceptable of football fans in 2021, and where they are not i meeting those standards, then take a stand. we are in denial of a lot i of the racism that happens in society and in football by very definition. - until we start having honest- conversations about what racism looks like and what we need to do to address it, we will be back- here again in 20 years' time. so, if football and its fans are a mere reflection of society, then the battle with racism could go one of two ways — either football can use its power, popularity and influence to help change attitudes and mindsets, or the alternative, those attitudes and those mindsets will need changing long before they come into contact with football. for the younger generation, be confident in your own skin, never to shy away from your blackness. never be derailed by somebody else's arrogance. black is love, you know. we have not done anything wrong apart from just being black, sort of thing, so... this is bbc news — these are the latest headlines in the uk and around the world. a record number of daily coronavirus cases across the uk — as more than 100,000 are recorded in a single day. it comes as the uk government's scientific advisers say clinically vulnerable children, aged five to 11, should be offered a covid vaccine. christmas freedom for thousands of people. new covid rules mean you can stop self—isolating in england after seven days — if you're testing negative. fresh covid restrictions for northern ireland, including the closure of nightclubs, form the 27th of december. further measures for pubs and restaurants are also expected. more restrcitions in wales too. from boxing day, groups of no more than six will be allowed to meet in pubs and restaurants — and the two metre social distancing rule will be reinstated.

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