This emerges from a report published on Monday by the world association FIFA. Accordingly, the proportion of female players who were insulted was 29 percent higher than that of male players who were insulted. FIFA said it analyzed 5.1 million social media posts in 35 different languages for offensive content at the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. At the 2022 Men’s World Cup in Qatar, four times as many contributions were examined.
Homophobic, sexual and sexist insults accounted for almost half of the offensive messages detected, the world association said. A fifth of all World Cup players received targeted discriminatory, insulting or threatening messages at the 2023 tournament.
For the investigation, FIFA used the SMPS system (Social Media Protection Service), which was used for the first time at the 2022 Men’s World Cup. According to FIFA, the service uses artificial intelligence (AI) to filter out hate messages that are then not displayed to players.
“There must be no place on social media for those who insult or threaten anyone, whether at FIFA tournaments or elsewhere,” said FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
