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Twitter to meet with Kick It Out and Manchester United

Representatives from social media company Twitter have agreed to meet with football's equality an...
Stephen Doyle
Stephen Doyle

18.17 21 Aug 2019


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Twitter to meet with Kick It O...

Twitter to meet with Kick It Out and Manchester United

Stephen Doyle
Stephen Doyle

18.17 21 Aug 2019


Share this article


Representatives from social media company Twitter have agreed to meet with football's equality and inclusion organisation, Kick It Out, and representatives from Manchester United.

The meeting comes in the wake of the online racist abuse directed at United midfielder Paul Pogba following the club's Premier League defeat to Wolves last Monday night.

Several of the France international's team-mates spoke out against those who were guilty of the online attacks and criticised the social media companies.

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A statement released by Twitter today admitted that they need to be more proactive in tackling these issues.

"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 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."

Pogba became the third player in the space of a week to suffer online racist abuse after Reading's Yakou Méïté and Chelsea striker Tammy Abraham.

From an Irish perspective, international full-back Cyrus Christie was targetted with online racist abuse after Ireland's World Cup playoff defeat to Denmark while Stoke City winger James McClean has also been the victim of discriminatory abuse.

Kick It Out released a statement on Tuesday;

"The latest round of fixtures have again seen unwarranted and vile racist abuse sent to players. This time, Reading’s Yakou Méïté and Manchester United’s Paul Pogba.

"The number of posts such as these since the start of the season further highlights how discriminatory abuse online is out of control.

"Without immediate and the strongest possible action these cowardly acts will continue to grow. As always, we have contacted the respective clubs to offer support to those affected."


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