QPR player and family racially abused on Instagram

[GodIsADeeJay81]

https://www.skysports.com/amp/football/ ... at-norwich

Bizarre that people still do this and Darren Bent was right when he said education isn't the answer because it isn't working.

Probably not far from social media anonymity being prevented.

[Aclaret]

If they can identify the culprit, prosecute, name and shame them.

[ClaretTony]

QPR are demanding help from Instagram in identifying who it is. I know Lee Hoos' views on this subject and I know he'll leave no stone unturned until he gets the information he wants and needs.

I totally agree with GodIsADeeJay81 - I think we have to move away from anonymity on social media. How on earth that can be achieved I don't know but something has to be done.

[Tribesmen]

Why this happens today i don't understand , sorry lost for words .

[tiger76]

Sad that this behaviour still goes on in the 21st century, I'm afraid what appears to have happened is that these braindead idiots have taken their hate away from the terraces and taken it online, where of course they can hide behind the cloak of anonymity.

I'm not against stricter guidelines, and even some form of ID system, however the problem I foresee is that all the main social media companies operate globally, so it would require a worldwide crackdown, and agreement across many different countries to enforce this, and that could be the tough part to agree on.

However even without government interventions the social media giants should be doing more, they generate huge turnovers, and therefore should be able to employ more staff to attempt to stamp out this pathetic behaviour, having said that the ultimate blame lies with the posters who post these vile messages in the first place, now how you get through to them I'm afraid I don't have the answer, sadly maybe we have to accept that we can't, and if it needs more stringent laws in place, and those laws to be enforced to stamp this nonsense out then so be it.

[bf2k]

I totally agree with GodIsADeeJay81 - I think we have to move away from anonymity on social media. How on earth that can be achieved I don't know but something has to be done.

Unfortunately with legislation such as GDPR I can't see anonymity being eradicated. However, I think you should provide some proof behind your alias to who you are that the authorities should be able to gain access to if required. Not sure how that would work on forum's like this though.

On the racist abuse and increased instances of these acts, without taking this political (although I don't know how it can't), football's support for BLM may have had a negative effect on the anti-discrimination work that went on before which is really disappointing. Politics was never allowed in sport and that is how it should be.

[Paul Waine]

I totally agree with GodIsADeeJay81 - I think we have to move away from anonymity on social media. How on earth that can be achieved I don't know but something has to be done.

I'm a big supporter of verified identification.

I'd require all social media to have two settings, the first where users with verified identities can select either to see all posts or choose to limit what they can see to posts by other verified users (and could toggle between the two, maybe even between different threads). The second setting would be limited to unverified users - they would only be allowed to see what other unverified users have posted.

I like meeting new people. I like talking with strangers. I always prefer that I know something about the person I'm speaking with as we spend time together.

[ClaretTony]

Unfortunately with legislation such as GDPR I can't see anonymity being eradicated. However, I think you should provide some proof behind your alias to who you are that the authorities should be able to gain access to if required. Not sure how that would work on forum's like this though.

It would be nice if it could work on here but I've no idea how. Certainly we wouldn't be able to do it.

[wilks_bfc]

Know they have been able to trace and punish some that are based in UK, but what if they are abroad?

Reading the abuse he received, I’m not convinced they are based in the UK. The text certainly doesn’t read that English is their natural language

[GodIsADeeJay81]

Know they have been able to trace and punish some that are based in UK, but what if they are abroad?

Reading the abuse he received, I’m not convinced they are based in the UK. The text certainly doesn’t read that English is their natural language

Doesn't rule out that they aren't in the UK, I've met English people who struggle with English..

[wilks_bfc]

Doesn't rule out that they aren't in the UK, I've met English people who struggle with English..

No I get that and wasn’t so much saying it for this case, just wondered if same process.

We’ve seen before the abuse Stan Collymore has received, and culprit has been traced and questioned pretty quickly

[Spiral]

Here's some food for thought on the subject of anonymity online, take it or leave it I suppose. I'm not even sure where I stand on the issue. It's obviously horrible that people receive racist abuse online, but any procedure put in place to assist in stopping that kind of abuse and harassment online needs to be weighed against the value that anonymity online brings to various platforms and how that anonymity might benefit users of those platforms, and to a larger degree society at large — or at least, those parts of society engaging with such platforms.

I'm the last person to defend social media companies in general because some of their business practices are to my mind unethical, and the people in charge of a lot of them are by-and-large a shower of delusional, rapacious psychopaths. They could moderate their content more strictly, sure, but I imagine there's a line of reasoning held by these companies in resisting the implementation of verification that is perhaps more coherent and not as sinister as it first looks. I think of it like this: imagine the victim of a physically or emotionally abusive relationship with no support group to turn to; imagine the victim of sexual abuse or rape, too afraid or too traumatised to even contact the police; imagine a person coming out as gay, or more difficult still owing to the stigma still attached to it, as trans, who is in turn completely disowned by their family etc etc etc. There are countless other examples of people in desperate situations (material or psychological), but in a nutshell we're talking about desperate people without other people to support them, too afraid, too prideful, or too hurt to confide in another person their desperation. What people in these desperate situations need more than anything else in the world is the support of other people, and they don't always have that, and this is where online communities legitimately save lives. They need to feel as though they are not alone, and they need to feel as though their desperation is validated. A woman beaten by her husband might be too afraid of him to reach out to the police or anyone she knows, and it could be the compassion and lucidity of another person listening without judgement and offering practical advice or emotional support that steers her away from suicidal impulses. And anonymity allows people in desperate situations to reach out to other people in these 'safe spaces' (a concept derided by naïve free speech advocates who hold a clumsy interpretation of the term 'free speech', but a concept which serves a purpose nonetheless) without the very real fear of their reaching out to other folks being used to wound them further. Anonymity allows folk the feeling of safety in reaching out to various groups or communities online. Imagine your deepest held anxiety, your worst memory, one which you're too uncomfortable to admit even to your wife, for instance. Almost everyone reading this has something they'd never let on if they knew it could be stuck to them, but who might feel a sense of liberation by sharing it with a complete stranger without judgement. And anonymity is essential to that whole thing actually working.

I think that if everyone were to be forced into the public, some of the legitimate value that comes from online spaces is lost, and so the damage that would come of it needs to be weighed carefully against the damage that very much is inflicted on others by those who currently operate under anonymity. It's easy to say, 'well let the social media companies verify users, and users can maintain public anonymity', but I think that places a tremendous, and frankly naïve amount of trust in the business practices and scruples of some social media companies. Frankly, I don't trust them to be responsible in possession of the private information of people who want desperately to remain anonymous online.

[GodIsADeeJay81]

Some great points there Spiral, which I hadn't considered.

What about then, social media sites where famous people have accounts require proof of ID to have an account, leaving other sites alone?

[Spiral]

Some great points there Spiral, which I hadn't considered.

What about then, social media sites where famous people have accounts require proof of ID to have an account, leaving other sites alone?

In spite of me writing another one of my loathsome bloody essays, I don't claim to be an oracle on this, and as I mentioned I'm not even sure where I stand on it all, mate, but in response to your post, my initial reflex is that there's a problem with letting SM companies define who is and who is not 'famous'. It's a legal quagmire and I'm not sure how terms of service could even be constructed where prestige access — i.e. I'm famous, let me post as a famous one — to what is ostensibly a public utility (this is how SM firms want to present themselves, lest they become subject to publication laws) is determined by the operator without crossing some serious ethical boundaries. I'll give you a particularly chilling example of how allowing SM companies editorial control over their platform can be damaging: TikTok (the one all the kids are on these days) was found to be supressing the sharing of videos of...wait for it...disabled people, and users the company found to be 'ugly'. I'm not making this up. Essentially, TikTok (Chinese owned, so somewhat beyond our jurisdiction, even compared with the soft-power influence we theoretically have over Google, Facebook etc (though...further parenthesised digression — then culture sec. and now health sec. Matt Hancock caved in to the threat from Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook of UK divestment when the govt. brought up the suggestion of regulating SM firms)) — TikTok wanted a teen-driven SM app where kids post borderline jail-bait dance routines. Nope, not for me, thanks. That for me was a lesson in the dangers of letting these companies define tiered access to their services.

Of course, if so-called famous people choose to seek out and limit their activity to platforms by whose governance they are less prone to receiving abuse, that's their prerogative (and I wouldn't blame them), and they'd probably be well-served by being thoughtful about how they interact with the public online, but this is essentially a consumer choice, not a matter of governance, and doesn't address the issue of how genuinely open, public networks can be either a safe-haven for folks or a platform for abuse. I think if you allow SM companies the power to choose who has access to speak in a way beyond the basic terms of service governing hate speech, abuse etc, you give them control over information, and that control over information gives them far too much power. To me it seems the real issue is that while they have well-considered terms of service, they aren't willing or quick enough to enforce them. And if banned users pop up with new accounts, it becomes a game of whack-a-mole, and I'm not sure how this can be properly resolved without stripping away the benefits to some that anonymity brings. There's also the issue that, let's be real, this is how people communicate these days. Telling someone to jack it in if they don't like the abuse they receive on SM is like telling a person who receives a letter bomb to seal up their letter box. It doesn't make sense.

Anyway, I'm incredibly ambivalent about all this, and I suppose my reason for posting is to perhaps encourage people to consider their views on how speech ought to be governed, because it can't be totally free, obviously, but there needs to be a degree of freedom, and anonymity can oftentimes serve that freedom in profoundly beneficial ways. I think most of the times, any impulse in response to these kinds of racist incidents to make people become public, comes from a place of decency and a pursuit of justice, so I can't blame folk for thinking that way.

[Jakubclaret]

Know they have been able to trace and punish some that are based in UK, but what if they are abroad?

Reading the abuse he received, I’m not convinced they are based in the UK. The text certainly doesn’t read that English is their natural language

You can easily generate robots to do that, half the time you think you are talking to somebody real it’s just robots on the rampage, how you establish who’s programming them is another question if the robots are responsible.

[Somethingfishy]

I just can't comprehend why people feel the urge or need to do things like this. I don't think education will help in this case. The culprit will likely know it is wrong what he/she has done but the key thing is they know they have a good chance of getting away with it from behind the safety of their keyboard. They will be loving the attention it is creating and in todays world of likes, followers, friends lists etc it means everything to some people. Almost like clickbait. Anonymity has to be removed and social media needs to be a lot more transparent. People need to be responsible for their actions.

[TheFamilyCat]

Thinking out loud here...

If membership of a social media site had a fee, even if it was a nominal amount like a quid, the a person's identity would need to be identified to authorise a card or PayPal payment. This would mean that every account should be traceable so culprits of abuse can be easily tracked down.

Probably loads of reasons why this isn't a viable option but seems sensible to me. I have a suspicion that SM companies' commitment to eradicating abuse from their sites is as strong as they claim.

[Colburn_Claret]

Racial abuse of this nature is a crime, punishable in the courts.
I don't see how Social Media groups can refuse to cooperate in bringing those involved to justice. It isn't stepping on anyones civil rights, it's complying with the law.

Name and shame them, then chuck the book at them.

I just hope Osayi-Samuel realises how much support there is for him, from sane minded people.

[andyh]

Here's some food for thought on the subject of anonymity online, take it or leave it I suppose. I'm not even sure where I stand on the issue. It's obviously horrible that people receive racist abuse online, but any procedure put in place to assist in stopping that kind of abuse and harassment online needs to be weighed against the value that anonymity online brings to various platforms and how that anonymity might benefit users of those platforms, and to a larger degree society at large — or at least, those parts of society engaging with such platforms.

I'm the last person to defend social media companies in general because some of their business practices are to my mind unethical, and the people in charge of a lot of them are by-and-large a shower of delusional, rapacious psychopaths. They could moderate their content more strictly, sure, but I imagine there's a line of reasoning held by these companies in resisting the implementation of verification that is perhaps more coherent and not as sinister as it first looks. I think of it like this: imagine the victim of a physically or emotionally abusive relationship with no support group to turn to; imagine the victim of sexual abuse or rape, too afraid or too traumatised to even contact the police; imagine a person coming out as gay, or more difficult still owing to the stigma still attached to it, as trans, who is in turn completely disowned by their family etc etc etc. There are countless other examples of people in desperate situations (material or psychological), but in a nutshell we're talking about desperate people without other people to support them, too afraid, too prideful, or too hurt to confide in another person their desperation. What people in these desperate situations need more than anything else in the world is the support of other people, and they don't always have that, and this is where online communities legitimately save lives. They need to feel as though they are not alone, and they need to feel as though their desperation is validated. A woman beaten by her husband might be too afraid of him to reach out to the police or anyone she knows, and it could be the compassion and lucidity of another person listening without judgement and offering practical advice or emotional support that steers her away from suicidal impulses. And anonymity allows people in desperate situations to reach out to other people in these 'safe spaces' (a concept derided by naïve free speech advocates who hold a clumsy interpretation of the term 'free speech', but a concept which serves a purpose nonetheless) without the very real fear of their reaching out to other folks being used to wound them further. Anonymity allows folk the feeling of safety in reaching out to various groups or communities online. Imagine your deepest held anxiety, your worst memory, one which you're too uncomfortable to admit even to your wife, for instance. Almost everyone reading this has something they'd never let on if they knew it could be stuck to them, but who might feel a sense of liberation by sharing it with a complete stranger without judgement. And anonymity is essential to that whole thing actually working.

I think that if everyone were to be forced into the public, some of the legitimate value that comes from online spaces is lost, and so the damage that would come of it needs to be weighed carefully against the damage that very much is inflicted on others by those who currently operate under anonymity. It's easy to say, 'well let the social media companies verify users, and users can maintain public anonymity', but I think that places a tremendous, and frankly naïve amount of trust in the business practices and scruples of some social media companies. Frankly, I don't trust them to be responsible in possession of the private information of people who want desperately to remain anonymous online.

I’ve worked in this area for many years. There are layers of anonymity. Public anonymity is one thing. But behind the scenes there is a clear audit trail from any message to a device. When you throw in information based on the user account it is usually relatively easy for the authorities to track down who is responsible. Fake id’s, burner phones and VPNs only protect you so far.

If this was national security rather than racial abuse then the individual could be found. I’m not sure we need many more relaxations on the privacy we do have.

[Woodleyclaret]

Time to move up from the Smoke and sign for the Super Clarets I think

[huw.Y.WattfromWare]

There is no place in society for racial abuse but I would have given him abuse for his dive that robbed Norwich of two points.

[Boss Hogg]

Instagram should just close the account down and bar the user from setting up another. I don’t use it as it’s just a magnet for Look at me s and idiots.