One in five Brazilian players in the European elite experienced racism on social media – 01/05/2021 – sport

Monkey characters. Gorilla faces. banana. It harms the color of the mother’s complexion. “black”. “Neguinho.” Mockery because of poetry. Monocytosis [macaco em espanhol] Shit. “

Over the weekend, that part of European football decided to boycott social networks because they believed they were doing little to combat racism, and Brazilian players had many reasons to protest.

The survey was performed by Leaf On the Instagram accounts of the country’s athletes who work for the elite on the continent, it appears that 23% of those who freely post comments on their photos have received at least one racist message this season, which began in August 2020.

The survey included the five main national competitions by UEFA (European Union) coefficients: Germany, Spain, France, England and Italy.

There are 105 Brazilian players in top-flight clubs in these countries. Of this total, 18 decided to block the account (which would require asking permission to follow), not to allow comments or to use the filter provided by Instagram to restrict interactions. Among those who did was is Neymar, who has 149 million followers.

Of the 87 who kept their accounts open, 20 received at least one racist comments.

Discriminatory content can be hidden, even if it is easy to understand. A user in Spanish wrote to Marcelo, from Real Madrid, “From a favela and against the ideas of its president, well, no…”, without clarifying whether the reference is to the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, or to the club’s representative Florentino Perez.

“All lives matter, you are black,” greeted striker Wesley from Aston Villa (ING).

There are also irregularities after poor results. A few hours after Paris Saint-Germain lost to Manchester City last Wednesday (28), in the semi-finals of the Champions League, Marquinhos’ blog post received comments with numbers of monkeys.

In the Confederation of Clubs, Federations, Athletes’ Associations, Fans and TV stations, English football began on Friday (30) a four-day boycott of the main social networks (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter). UEFA joined the measure, which also received a message of support from FIFA.

Formula 1 drivers such as Lewis Hamilton, George Russell and Lando Norris, and representatives of other popular sports in England, such as rugby, cycling and cricket, were others who joined the protest, in addition to the International Tennis Federation (ITF).

Pallets [das redes sociais] You have the button to filter or not to filter [comentários]. Attorney Renato Opis Blon, who specializes in digital law and data protection, says they have more proactive attitudes than they did years ago, and are trying to determine this.

Says Juliana Abrucio, a lawyer and professor at the McKinsey School of Law in São Paulo.

Of the tournaments surveyed, the highest crime rate occurred in Spain, with out of 15 players who had Instagram open to comments, 7 were targets of racism (46.6%). Of the five Real Madrid athletes – Marcelo, Vinicius Junior, Eder Militao, Rodrigo and Casemiro – only Militão has not gone through this experience.

In France, 33.3% of Brazilian players received racist crimes, more than England (24%), Germany (16.6%) and Italy (4.3%), who are seen as having an open profile.

The inclusion of blacks in this mathematical modernity is always from the periphery to the center. This joking topic to the periphery is invisible. When it appears in the middle, it seems as if it is an invader, there should be no. Too much weirdness, fantasies and illusions in others. From there the insults emerge, “says Hilton Ferreira Jr., a PhD student in the social and cultural studies of sport at the School of Physical Education at the University of São Paulo (University of São Paulo).

For Marcelo Medeiros Carvalho, Executive Director of the Observatory of Racial Discrimination in Football, the scale of crimes on social networks is also linked to the position of government officials. “The increase in hate speech by leaders like presidents and prime ministers, in Brazil and abroad, is encouraging fans to feel free to make these hate speeches,” he says.

Carvalho also notes that the impossibility of having fans in the stadiums due to the Covid-19 pandemic has caused fans to “unleash all the hate, frustration and prejudice on social networks.”

“The comments on social media are full of hatred and above all racism,” said Manchester United midfielder Fred. “We cannot feed this culture. We cannot accept that. We must always fight. We are bigger and better than that.” It was called “monkey” in a comment.

After consulting the report, Instagram and Facebook (both affiliated with the same company) reported in a joint note that between October and December of last year, the platforms acted on 33 million messages identified as hate speech, 95% of which were found before any reports surfaced. made.

“No one should be mistreated, anywhere, and it is against our policies to harass or discriminate against people on Instagram or Facebook. We agree and have already come up with many of the suggestions the football community has suggested, including stricter measures against violations.” Our direct messaging rules. We also announced recently that we will soon provide new tools, developed based on conversations with athletes and anti-discrimination experts, to help prevent people from seeing offensive messages from strangers. “

Regarding the boycott launched by European football federations and clubs, Twitter says that since the start of the current season in the United Kingdom, there have been 30 million posts about football, 7,000 of which have been removed for violating company rules.

“We are improving our proactive measures and removing, without reporting, 90% of abuse directed at players. In addition, we provide fast reporting channels to our football partners, ensuring that any potentially infringing content is analyzed and played back quickly.”