As said previously, I’d go nuclear and introduce that to have the ability to use the Internet / contribute towards it, you need to have a licence, obtained by undertaking the equivalent of a provisional driving licence.
A clear process of individual accountability, education of usage, moderate exam to prove to individual awareness of right / wrong usage, points punishment / removal of licence for falling short of acceptable standards. And then strong criminal punishments for individuals and impacting punishments for companies not maintaining sufficient controls.
Racism isn’t the ultimate problem, it’s the allowance for ALL forms of nastiness, trolling, bullying, barrier-pushing and shock / edge contributions that has encouraged a race to the bottom and vessels of hatred to emerge and become accepted as the norm. This isn’t something that can be done by soft measures imo, it needs an almighty shift.
I agree.
We need a license to drive a car, quite rightly and in this country at least to own a gun. Those are sensible control measures that don't restrict law abiding people rather then protect them.
I totally disagree.
Such approach leads directly to governmental control as we see in the likes of China and Russia.
I can't buy into the qualifications for the Internet or ID. The very nature of social media is that it is easy to join, it would lose it's appeal. Twitter isn't my sort of thing so I don't go on it, if people have that much off a problem with it why don't they just permanently leave it?
Because there is no real desire to do so. Mental gymnastics come in to play where their wants to continue posting on there outweighs the hurt, harm and outright nastiness that courses through the veins of the platform and the impact on so many people.
The House of Commoners would also see a reduction of about 80% of posts posted on there
I can't buy into the qualifications for the Internet or ID. The very nature of social media is that it is easy to join, it would lose it's appeal. Twitter isn't my sort of thing so I don't go on it, if people have that much off a problem with it why don't they just permanently leave it?
The House of Commoners would also see a reduction of about 80% of posts posted on there
I can't buy into the qualifications for the Internet or ID. The very nature of social media is that it is easy to join, it would lose it's appeal. Twitter isn't my sort of thing so I don't go on it, if people have that much off a problem with it why don't they just permanently leave it?
Because there is no real desire to do so. Mental gymnastics come in to play where their wants to continue posting on there outweighs the hurt, harm and outright nastiness that courses through the veins of the platform and the impact on so many people.
The House of Commoners would also see a reduction of about 80% of posts posted on there
But surely if the abuse they receive is having that much off an effect they would just get somebody else to run it?
Appreciate the sentiment but I really don’t see what this achieves at all. It’s not as if Twitter is ignoring the issue.
Twitter and Facebook had no idea what they were building when they launched their platforms. It’s not as simple as “just be better at banning the racists”. There’s hundreds of millions of users on these platforms everyday, they simply don’t have the man power to monitor what goes on.
They heavily rely on the reporting function and even then they rely on algorithms to sort through what’s worthy of a human checking the post. Even then there’s a whole can of worms with the algorithm seemingly banning people who don’t deserve to be banned and vice versa.
The only way people have knowingly fixed these issues is in China, using a draconian social credit system which in itself creates more problems than it fixes. It’s a massive problem that’s not got an easy answer.
Not being on social media I don’t really know what kind of thing such a boycott would signify. However the issue of racism in my view ought to be high on every agenda, and in the forefront of people’s minds all the time. If this social media thing helps people reflect on, and eventually stand up to, racism, then I would like to see more and more of this kind of thing. Anything that diminishes racists even a titchy bit is welcome as far as I am concerned. Better than passive acceptance.
But you are on social media! Here you are on this forum which clearly meets the definition of "social media".
I have to accept what you say not being au fait with the definition of social media. not as clear to me as it is to you.
As said previously, I’d go nuclear and introduce that to have the ability to use the Internet / contribute towards it, you need to have a licence, obtained by undertaking the equivalent of a provisional driving licence.
A clear process of individual accountability, education of usage, moderate exam to prove to individual awareness of right / wrong usage, points punishment / removal of licence for falling short of acceptable standards. And then strong criminal punishments for individuals and impacting punishments for companies not maintaining sufficient controls.
Racism isn’t the ultimate problem, it’s the allowance for ALL forms of nastiness, trolling, bullying, barrier-pushing and shock / edge contributions that has encouraged a race to the bottom and vessels of hatred to emerge and become accepted as the norm. This isn’t something that can be done by soft measures imo, it needs an almighty shift.
I agree.
We need a license to drive a car, quite rightly and in this country at least to own a gun. Those are sensible control measures that don't restrict law abiding people rather then protect them.
I totally disagree.
Such approach leads directly to governmental control as we see in the likes of China and Russia.
And on the other hand we see abuse, bots (often Russian) and racism.
There is a middle ground between total state control and a free for all with no controls or censure.
I don't like drunk or dangerous drivers but I'm not going to let their behaviour stop me driving just as I won't let racists and trolls on social media stop me using what is 95% of the time a fun and harmless medium.
If people prefer to not use twitter then great that is there choice but if they do use they should be so within the laws against harassment, libel and racism and that should be monitored and sanctioned by the platforms themselves. A simple ID on sign up and signing an agreement on what is and isn't allowed should be enough.
We nearly all remember a time when racist abuse on the terraces was dismissed as "it happens" and "if you don't like it, don't come to games" but that was changed by people challenging it and the authorities acting against the racists.
As said previously, I’d go nuclear and introduce that to have the ability to use the Internet / contribute towards it, you need to have a licence, obtained by undertaking the equivalent of a provisional driving licence.
A clear process of individual accountability, education of usage, moderate exam to prove to individual awareness of right / wrong usage, points punishment / removal of licence for falling short of acceptable standards. And then strong criminal punishments for individuals and impacting punishments for companies not maintaining sufficient controls.
Racism isn’t the ultimate problem, it’s the allowance for ALL forms of nastiness, trolling, bullying, barrier-pushing and shock / edge contributions that has encouraged a race to the bottom and vessels of hatred to emerge and become accepted as the norm. This isn’t something that can be done by soft measures imo, it needs an almighty shift.
Do you not see all of the problems this brings?
Who decides what’s acceptable to say online? What sort of punishment does one get for taking the piss out of a friend compared to calling opposition fans wankers? Are private corporations deciding what’s acceptable speech or is it politicians? Is all criticism of political figures now deemed fake news and easily suppressed? Are whistleblowers now unable to come out with vital information because their anonymity has disappeared? Can you now no longer get a mortgage for something you said online at 18?
I’m not saying we shouldn’t make changes on how we regulate online activity, but you must be very careful what you wish for.
Requiring social media to change its business model and to introduce verified ID is a preposterous, unworkable and very undesirable idea. Vast swathes of the best, most important content shared on social media comes from beyond the reach of UK legislation - should we also ban the consumption of that content, in order to protect the delicate sensibilities of gentle, British social media users? Of course not. Just ask @Jessie what the advantages of that kind of policy would be. Or, better still, a user in North Korea. (Although, obviously, in North Korea, the official line would be that cracking down on social media use is very desirable).
All forms of racism are abhorrent and should be called out and punished, whenever possible. But, just because some racism exists in football grounds, it doesn't mean supporting a football team should be made illegal. In the same way, some anonymous users of social media share racist ideology does not mean there should be a blanket ban on anonymous social media accounts.
I support football's highlighting of the issues of racist content being posted on social media. But I would not support it if it were intended to criminalise the sharing of content anonymously.
This will definitely persuade racist knuckleheads to stop being racist, I can just see them now realising the error of their ways.
No it won't because racist knucklehead are, well, racist knuckleheads.
But it might make Twitter, facebook, Instagram etc act a lot quicker and more effectively to delete, ban and so hurt those racist knuckleheads and deny them platforms to abuse others.
Does this mean they won't be showing the Accrington game next Saturday?
Got to but they won't be able to tell anyone. Wonder how one defines social media in the end as it all relies on the internet.
I am not sure what the exact definition of social media might be, I would imagine it involves direct interaction with other people? I do know that a club or any other website broadcasting a football match is not social media.
As said previously, I’d go nuclear and introduce that to have the ability to use the Internet / contribute towards it, you need to have a licence, obtained by undertaking the equivalent of a provisional driving licence.
A clear process of individual accountability, education of usage, moderate exam to prove to individual awareness of right / wrong usage, points punishment / removal of licence for falling short of acceptable standards. And then strong criminal punishments for individuals and impacting punishments for companies not maintaining sufficient controls.
Racism isn’t the ultimate problem, it’s the allowance for ALL forms of nastiness, trolling, bullying, barrier-pushing and shock / edge contributions that has encouraged a race to the bottom and vessels of hatred to emerge and become accepted as the norm. This isn’t something that can be done by soft measures imo, it needs an almighty shift.
I agree.
We need a license to drive a car, quite rightly and in this country at least to own a gun. Those are sensible control measures that don't restrict law abiding people rather then protect them.
I totally disagree.
Such approach leads directly to governmental control as we see in the likes of China and Russia.
And on the other hand we see abuse, bots (often Russian) and racism.
There is a middle ground between total state control and a free for all with no controls or censure.
I don't like drunk or dangerous drivers but I'm not going to let their behaviour stop me driving just as I won't let racists and trolls on social media stop me using what is 95% of the time a fun and harmless medium.
If people prefer to not use twitter then great that is there choice but if they do use they should be so within the laws against harassment, libel and racism and that should be monitored and sanctioned by the platforms themselves. A simple ID on sign up and signing an agreement on what is and isn't allowed should be enough.
We nearly all remember a time when racist abuse on the terraces was dismissed as "it happens" and "if you don't like it, don't come to games" but that was changed by people challenging it and the authorities acting against the racists.
This is a very challenging societal question, and one to which I'm afraid there is no easy answer.
Twitter hasn't created racists, but it has given them a platform on which they can spout their hatred with anonymity.
So, do you 1. "cancel" the platform, 2. change the platform, or 3. change the racists?
1. As much as I dislike Twitter (and other social media platforms) because it gives a voice to idiots (just look at Merlewood House), I also recognise it does a lot of good for the vast majority of users.
2. An earlier post suggested all posts should be moderated before publication. There are 500 million tweets posted a day. That scale of content isn't manageable in any "human" sense, and would need a pretty big AI based platform to effectively work. That aside, Twitter is a platform rather than a publisher of content.
3. There have been many stepchanges in attitudes to race at various points in history, and the last couple of years have seen, arguably, another stepchange in the way society challenges discrimination. BUT, there are still racists and sadly there will always be racists, even if society continues to progress.
So, what's the answer? There isn't one single golden bullet - every little helps and I have no doubt this boycott will be another moment that focuses on the need for change. If it challenges Twitter to be more effective at pulling content and blocking users then all to the good.
As said previously, I’d go nuclear and introduce that to have the ability to use the Internet / contribute towards it, you need to have a licence, obtained by undertaking the equivalent of a provisional driving licence.
A clear process of individual accountability, education of usage, moderate exam to prove to individual awareness of right / wrong usage, points punishment / removal of licence for falling short of acceptable standards. And then strong criminal punishments for individuals and impacting punishments for companies not maintaining sufficient controls.
Racism isn’t the ultimate problem, it’s the allowance for ALL forms of nastiness, trolling, bullying, barrier-pushing and shock / edge contributions that has encouraged a race to the bottom and vessels of hatred to emerge and become accepted as the norm. This isn’t something that can be done by soft measures imo, it needs an almighty shift.
Surely that horse has bolted. Freedom of access to the internet is out there - it is a global, multi billion user "thing" that is too large and complex to rein in. The reality is that the only environment that would allow control of "the internet" is the type of regime that exists in North Korea or China.
I'd argue that the boycott has already worked to a certain extent.
It has generated debate on here and no doubt on other message boards and twitter itself.
Not all the responses will be supportive but others will stop to think. Others will see their club taking a stance and feel emboldened to speak out against racism and abuse next time they see it.
Let’s not forget that banning people for having abhorrent views doesn’t stop those views from existing. They’ll simply go to another platform and create a radicalised eco chamber that has no way of being mitigated.
If you want to focus on the issue of racism then your problem is with the education system and not the platforms themselves. Focusing on what Twitter can do to better ban people is brushing the problem under the rug.
There are several ways to stop these types of abuse from happening:
1) introduce moderation so that before anything is posted live online it is moderated - this is already in place with comments sections on some websites. This would also prevent live streaming of things like terror attacks or gang fights.
2) ensure that everyone who has a social media account has to provide real name/address information as part of the registration process
Many of those carrying out the abuse are aided and abetted by the ease with which they can post their shit online and hide behind the anonymity of user names.
The problem with (1) is that it would be prohibitively expensive. Websites are 'published'. That is, there is a publisher (the site owner) who controls the content it publishes. That publisher is subject to laws, including libel laws, precisely because they are publishing the content. They are responsible for that content and the publisher can be jailed when if the content is egregiously libellous. Facebook and Twitter are not publishers, they are platforms. In the same way that 'television' and 'radio' are not broadcasters, but 'ITV' and 'LBC' are. You wouldn't hold 'television' to account if IT broke the law. Social media cannot moderate the hundreds of thousands of posts and images that are created every hour.
And the problem with (2) is that much of the great content published on social media is created precisely because it's anonymous. Leaks, investigative citizen journalism, substantiated rumours. All this stuff would be lost if there was a requirement to provide de-anonymised accounts. It's spectacularly authoritarian to require that an individual must prove their traceable, verifiable personally-identifiable information in order to have a voice on social media. There are some countries that have taken that direction, but I am very happy that the UK hasn't taken that route.
As things stand, you are correct and I'm sure that Facebook/Twitter et al like very much to see themselves as a platform rather than a publisher. Well, they would, wouldn't they? And, indeed there is legal precedent to demonstrate that they are correct - for the moment.
But, in my view, the times, they are a-changin'. Enough is enough.
They want to have their cake and eat it. They benefit hugely from all the dross that gets published on their "platforms" but don't want to take any responsibility for it.
But..... I use this as an example because it is a topic about which I know a little. There are vast quantities of highly dubious or entirely fraudulent financial promotions on social media. A lot of them have the potential to do serious harm to the greedy, unwary, or gullible. I am sure then that the big players in social media will all be well aware of the contents of this (fairly recent) article. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/apr/20/city-watchdog-warns-social-media-over-investment-offers
We think that it is important that online platform operators, like Google, bear clear
legal liability for the financial promotions they pass on – at least to the same extent
as traditional publishers of financial promotions; that would mean that an online
publisher would have to ensure that any financial promotion which they communicate
has first been approved by an authorised person or otherwise falls within the scope
of an exemption in the Financial Promotions Order. We are currently considering with
the Treasury the application of the financial promotions regime to these platform
operators and whether we need any new powers over them. This work is relevant not
just to the promotion of high risk investments but to our work to address online harms
– including scams – more generally.
The FCA quite enjoys hitting someone with a very large fine. It is a motivational tool "pour encourager les autres" and helps top up the Treasury's coffers in these straitened times. I'm expecting a fairly quick introduction of a statutory instrument putting social media right in the firing line for some nice juicy financial penalties.
I'm also pretty sure the FCA won't be the last to want to get their regulatory snout into the very large Facebook trough.
I'm pretty sure other regulators/crime investigators will be forming an orderly queue at the Government's door to get legislation tweeked appropriately.
As said previously, I’d go nuclear and introduce that to have the ability to use the Internet / contribute towards it, you need to have a licence, obtained by undertaking the equivalent of a provisional driving licence.
A clear process of individual accountability, education of usage, moderate exam to prove to individual awareness of right / wrong usage, points punishment / removal of licence for falling short of acceptable standards. And then strong criminal punishments for individuals and impacting punishments for companies not maintaining sufficient controls.
Racism isn’t the ultimate problem, it’s the allowance for ALL forms of nastiness, trolling, bullying, barrier-pushing and shock / edge contributions that has encouraged a race to the bottom and vessels of hatred to emerge and become accepted as the norm. This isn’t something that can be done by soft measures imo, it needs an almighty shift.
I agree.
We need a license to drive a car, quite rightly and in this country at least to own a gun. Those are sensible control measures that don't restrict law abiding people rather then protect them.
But cars and guns are physical things with a price, a value, and a physical competence attached to them. Access to the internet is ubiquitous, free and non-physical. If we decided cars or guns needed to be removed from society, those that wanted to keep them couldn't create a "dark world" of cars and guns that could not be seen, because they are physical entities. Remove the web from people who wouldn't want to lose access to the internet and you scale up the "dark web".
So creating a licence system wouldn't remove the problem (or rather the problem of committed users).
Over and above that, the anonymity of the internet is, in the vast majority of cases, used for good. I'm pretty sure this site would lose 75% of its users if anonymity was removed. Political development and the growth of democracy will, in many cases, be driven by anonymous social media content.
I think we'd love the same outcome, but licencing isn't it..
I'd argue that the boycott has already worked to a certain extent.
It has generated debate on here and no doubt on other message boards and twitter itself.
Not all the responses will be supportive but others will stop to think. Others will see their club taking a stance and feel emboldened to speak out against racism and abuse next time they see it.
With the greatest of respect, this debate has been ravaging on for years. I can link you multiple podcasts, which are several years old, with Twitter’s founder Jack Dorsey where he talks for hours about this exact issue and the problems the world has tackling it.
It seems to be a case of the EFL and the Premier League being very late to the party.
As said previously, I’d go nuclear and introduce that to have the ability to use the Internet / contribute towards it, you need to have a licence, obtained by undertaking the equivalent of a provisional driving licence.
A clear process of individual accountability, education of usage, moderate exam to prove to individual awareness of right / wrong usage, points punishment / removal of licence for falling short of acceptable standards. And then strong criminal punishments for individuals and impacting punishments for companies not maintaining sufficient controls.
Racism isn’t the ultimate problem, it’s the allowance for ALL forms of nastiness, trolling, bullying, barrier-pushing and shock / edge contributions that has encouraged a race to the bottom and vessels of hatred to emerge and become accepted as the norm. This isn’t something that can be done by soft measures imo, it needs an almighty shift.
I agree.
We need a license to drive a car, quite rightly and in this country at least to own a gun. Those are sensible control measures that don't restrict law abiding people rather then protect them.
But cars and guns are physical things with a price, a value, and a physical competence attached to them. Access to the internet is ubiquitous, free and non-physical. If we decided cars or guns needed to be removed from society, those that wanted to keep them couldn't create a "dark world" of cars and guns that could not be seen, because they are physical entities. Remove the web from people who wouldn't want to lose access to the internet and you scale up the "dark web".
So creating a licence system wouldn't remove the problem (or rather the problem of committed users).
Over and above that, the anonymity of the internet is, in the vast majority of cases, used for good. I'm pretty sure this site would lose 75% of its users if anonymity was removed. Political development and the growth of democracy will, in many cases, be driven by anonymous social media content.
I think we'd love the same outcome, but licencing isn't it..
I was late to Twitter, roughly around the start of the pandemic and lockdown when started to use it regularly when someone asked me to send a video of the dogs to residents at a Care home via the platform. I/we now have 600+ followers and all I should imagine have no interest in me at all but follow the dogs and their work, but a small handful took it on theirselves to send us DMs of a abusive nature and bar none all had hidden their ID behind a moody name and sadly two them are “Charlton fans”. I’m not sure what the answer is but the ability to hide behind an alias helps them so maybe that’s a starting point, I’ve witnessed players get abuse on their performance including the skipper, Jason is a regular after a game with a short message and will sometimes mention his own performance in an honest assessment and one particular day was called a “useless **** by a supposed fan, I immediately went to his page to block him and to find out who this individual was. there was not one single reference to who it was male/female etc. I’m sure whatever protocols are put in place these individuals will find away around them but as said elsewhere post a video of a premier league game it’s gone in minutes. I have the ability to mute words so surely Twitter has the ability to do the same with words and a combination of words.
I'd argue that the boycott has already worked to a certain extent.
It has generated debate on here and no doubt on other message boards and twitter itself.
Not all the responses will be supportive but others will stop to think. Others will see their club taking a stance and feel emboldened to speak out against racism and abuse next time they see it.
With the greatest of respect, this debate has been ravaging on for years. I can link you multiple podcasts, which are several years old, with Twitter’s founder Jack Dorsey where he talks for hours about this exact issue and the problems the world has tackling it.
It seems to be a case of the EFL and the Premier League being very late to the party.
Which proves my point.
More needs to be done and late or not the clubs are doing something.
The extra discussion generated because it's football maybe late and may not solve the problem overnight but it is something.
And it's the right thing to do.
As I said earlier there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than 99 who don't need to repent
All the time the football world is ignoring the fact that a World Cup is about to happen built on the blood of modern day slavery I can’t believe that these folks actually care.
Other than Norway I’ve seen very little criticism and we all know the same players taking the knee and putting up a black square on Instagram will be the ones desperate to play in that World Cup.
I don't think we should link the two as players were not responsible for the choice of Qatar, but your point about slavery is a good one. We should all care more about that.
This whole campaign is a classic example of doing fuck all about a serious topic. "Something must be done, but nothing too serious."
Not pointing the finger at Charlton, but if anyone thinks that a single internet scumbag will change their mind because a football team have stopped tweeting for a few days, they are living on a different planet.
I have thought about this long and hard, and the only solution is to remove internet anonymity.
Anonymity turns people into scumbags, just look at protests in a huge crowd. Anonymity turns mentally fragile people into complete arseholes, because they hate their life and want you to hate yours too.
This whole campaign is a classic example of doing fuck all about a serious topic. "Something must be done, but nothing too serious."
Not pointing the finger of Charlton, but if anyone thinks that a single internet scumbag will change their mind because a football team have stopped tweeting for a few days, they are living on a different planet.
I have thought about this long and hard, and the only solution is to remove internet anonymity.
Anonymity turns people into scumbags, just look at protests in a huge crowd. Anonymity turns mentally fragile people into complete arseholes, because they hate their life and want you to hate yours too.
This whole campaign is a classic example of doing fuck all about a serious topic. "Something must be done, but nothing too serious."
Not pointing the finger of Charlton, but if anyone thinks that a single internet scumbag will change their mind because a football team have stopped tweeting for a few days, they are living on a different planet.
I have thought about this long and hard, and the only solution is to remove internet anonymity.
Anonymity turns people into scumbags, just look at protests in a huge crowd. Anonymity turns mentally fragile people into complete arseholes, because they hate their life and want you to hate yours too.
All the time the football world is ignoring the fact that a World Cup is about to happen built on the blood of modern day slavery I can’t believe that these folks actually care.
Other than Norway I’ve seen very little criticism and we all know the same players taking the knee and putting up a black square on Instagram will be the ones desperate to play in that World Cup.
It’s a different issue but it does have validity ... money still talks.
The number of deaths during stadium preparations has been awful yet it has received relatively little publicity apart from from a few journalists.
I don't think that's going to acheive anything and in fact I think it will just prolong the situation even more.
Have
you noticed there's been so many reports of racial abuse at black and
non-white players ever since the BLM started? I think the real issue is
it's in people's minds a lot more and it's getting that way more guilty
racist people are going to take to social media to be keyboard warriors.
Here's my solution:
1: If someone is guilty of racial abuse on social media punish them even further.
2:
Stop talking about racism!!! Morgan Freeman (one of my favourite
actors) is spot on here IMO. He does not want a Black History month and
wants to be referred to as Morgan Freeman, not the famous black actor.
Comments
The House of Commoners would also see a reduction of about 80% of posts posted on there
not as clear to me as it is to you.
There is a middle ground between total state control and a free for all with no controls or censure.
I don't like drunk or dangerous drivers but I'm not going to let their behaviour stop me driving just as I won't let racists and trolls on social media stop me using what is 95% of the time a fun and harmless medium.
If people prefer to not use twitter then great that is there choice but if they do use they should be so within the laws against harassment, libel and racism and that should be monitored and sanctioned by the platforms themselves. A simple ID on sign up and signing an agreement on what is and isn't allowed should be enough.
We nearly all remember a time when racist abuse on the terraces was dismissed as "it happens" and "if you don't like it, don't come to games" but that was changed by people challenging it and the authorities acting against the racists.
All forms of racism are abhorrent and should be called out and punished, whenever possible. But, just because some racism exists in football grounds, it doesn't mean supporting a football team should be made illegal. In the same way, some anonymous users of social media share racist ideology does not mean there should be a blanket ban on anonymous social media accounts.
I support football's highlighting of the issues of racist content being posted on social media. But I would not support it if it were intended to criminalise the sharing of content anonymously.
I am not sure what the exact definition of social media might be, I would imagine it involves direct interaction with other people? I do know that a club or any other website broadcasting a football match is not social media.
Twitter hasn't created racists, but it has given them a platform on which they can spout their hatred with anonymity.
So, do you 1. "cancel" the platform, 2. change the platform, or 3. change the racists?
1. As much as I dislike Twitter (and other social media platforms) because it gives a voice to idiots (just look at Merlewood House), I also recognise it does a lot of good for the vast majority of users.
2. An earlier post suggested all posts should be moderated before publication. There are 500 million tweets posted a day. That scale of content isn't manageable in any "human" sense, and would need a pretty big AI based platform to effectively work. That aside, Twitter is a platform rather than a publisher of content.
3. There have been many stepchanges in attitudes to race at various points in history, and the last couple of years have seen, arguably, another stepchange in the way society challenges discrimination. BUT, there are still racists and sadly there will always be racists, even if society continues to progress.
So, what's the answer? There isn't one single golden bullet - every little helps and I have no doubt this boycott will be another moment that focuses on the need for change. If it challenges Twitter to be more effective at pulling content and blocking users then all to the good.
It has generated debate on here and no doubt on other message boards and twitter itself.
Not all the responses will be supportive but others will stop to think. Others will see their club taking a stance and feel emboldened to speak out against racism and abuse next time they see it.
But, in my view, the times, they are a-changin'. Enough is enough.
They want to have their cake and eat it. They benefit hugely from all the dross that gets published on their "platforms" but don't want to take any responsibility for it.
But..... I use this as an example because it is a topic about which I know a little. There are vast quantities of highly dubious or entirely fraudulent financial promotions on social media. A lot of them have the potential to do serious harm to the greedy, unwary, or gullible. I am sure then that the big players in social media will all be well aware of the contents of this (fairly recent) article. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/apr/20/city-watchdog-warns-social-media-over-investment-offers
The FCA's full paper dated September 2020 is here if anyone feels so inclined. https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/annual-reports/perimeter-report-2019-20.pdf
But here is an extract:
We think that it is important that online platform operators, like Google, bear clear legal liability for the financial promotions they pass on – at least to the same extent as traditional publishers of financial promotions; that would mean that an online publisher would have to ensure that any financial promotion which they communicate has first been approved by an authorised person or otherwise falls within the scope of an exemption in the Financial Promotions Order. We are currently considering with the Treasury the application of the financial promotions regime to these platform operators and whether we need any new powers over them. This work is relevant not just to the promotion of high risk investments but to our work to address online harms – including scams – more generally.
The FCA quite enjoys hitting someone with a very large fine. It is a motivational tool "pour encourager les autres" and helps top up the Treasury's coffers in these straitened times. I'm expecting a fairly quick introduction of a statutory instrument putting social media right in the firing line for some nice juicy financial penalties.
I'm also pretty sure the FCA won't be the last to want to get their regulatory snout into the very large Facebook trough.
I'm pretty sure other regulators/crime investigators will be forming an orderly queue at the Government's door to get legislation tweeked appropriately.
So creating a licence system wouldn't remove the problem (or rather the problem of committed users).
Over and above that, the anonymity of the internet is, in the vast majority of cases, used for good. I'm pretty sure this site would lose 75% of its users if anonymity was removed. Political development and the growth of democracy will, in many cases, be driven by anonymous social media content.
I think we'd love the same outcome, but licencing isn't it..
More needs to be done and late or not the clubs are doing something.
The extra discussion generated because it's football maybe late and may not solve the problem overnight but it is something.
And it's the right thing to do.
As I said earlier there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than 99 who don't need to repent
Not pointing the finger at Charlton, but if anyone thinks that a single internet scumbag will change their mind because a football team have stopped tweeting for a few days, they are living on a different planet.
I have thought about this long and hard, and the only solution is to remove internet anonymity.
Anonymity turns people into scumbags, just look at protests in a huge crowd. Anonymity turns mentally fragile people into complete arseholes, because they hate their life and want you to hate yours too.
Have you noticed there's been so many reports of racial abuse at black and non-white players ever since the BLM started? I think the real issue is it's in people's minds a lot more and it's getting that way more guilty racist people are going to take to social media to be keyboard warriors.
Here's my solution:
1: If someone is guilty of racial abuse on social media punish them even further.
2: Stop talking about racism!!! Morgan Freeman (one of my favourite actors) is spot on here IMO. He does not want a Black History month and wants to be referred to as Morgan Freeman, not the famous black actor.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeixtYS-P3s