Posted on May 4, 2021

FIFA, UEFA Joins English Soccer’s 4-Day Social Media Boycott

Associated Press, April 29, 2021

English soccer’s boycott of social media is spreading after FIFA and UEFA said they will join the players, clubs and organizations in a four-day protest against online abuse.

The boycott will also be joined by English cricket and rugby clubs, and the British Lawn Tennis Association, highlighting concerns that Twitter and Facebook, which also owns Instagram, aren’t doing enough to combat racist abuse on their platforms.

“FIFA supports the initiative from English football to call out discriminatory and other offensive abuse on social media,” world football’s governing body said in a statement. “This has no place in football or society more generally and we strongly condemn it.

“We believe that authorities and social media companies should take real and effective steps to put an end to these abhorrent practices because it’s getting worse all the time and something needs to be done — and done quickly — to put a stop to it.

The social media silence will start on Friday afternoon until late Monday evening.

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UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin used a speech last week to 55 member federations urging people in European soccer to make formal complaints about “unacceptable tweets or messages.”

“We’ve had enough of these cowards who hide behind their anonymity to spew out their noxious ideologies,” Čeferin said last week in Montreux, Switzerland.

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