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Some English fans booed their own team when they took the knee before kick-off in the Euro 2020 competition (played in 2021). However, Britons are more likely to view Black Lives Matter as a force for good than ill, a YouGov poll suggests. Nearly half (46%) of voters saw the movement as a force for good compared to 35% per who saw it as negative The exclusive polling was carried out for a More In Common paper on the culture wars. The organisation, set up in the wake of the extremist murder of MP Jo Cox, also found through focus groups that “the public can and do make a distinction between the movement and the political organisation”.

That distinction has been at the heart of recent rows over England footballers taking the knee (going down on knee) before matches, in a gesture popularised by the BLM movement. The players said they were doing it to protest against racism and discrimination, but several prominent right-wing figures denounced their stance.

Some English fans booed their own players when they took the knee (they also booed  other countries’ national anthems).  Home Secretary, Priti Patel said it was ‘gesture politics’ and that ‘everyone has a right to boo’. Prime Minister Johnson refused to condemn the booing. Conservative MP MP Lee Anderson boycotted all England games on the team’s run to the Euro 2020 final this month because he believed taking the knee amounted to supporting an organisation with “quite sinister motives”.

Racist Tweets Storm – What Happened Before, During and After the Euro 2020 Final?

I spotted a short post by Dr John Bustard ‘Here is a short blog relating to recent research on twitter’.   It was shocking and uplifting. Coincidentally, this coincided with an ongoing discussion we are having about marketing tools including social media, automated journeys,  AI  and even racism online in #Clubhouse chat-app where, our club called #SOSTAC (r) Plans. We have a lively 30 min chat from 3.30pm-4.00pm each week about what’s new in marketing and SOSTAC (r) Planning Q&A.

Last week we talked about Gareth Southgate (English football/soccer manager) amazing post about his players taking the knee and a lot more inspirational uplifting thinking.  It was, in fact, a letter called ‘Dear England’. It was a classy demonstration of real leadership. Real values, Real harmony. Real humanity. A masterpiece. And an appeal, I think, to English fans not to boo their own team when they take the knee, before each game.  England lost the final to Italy and the racist hate tweets immediately flowed. In fact, they became a storm. Picking on three brave young black lads who missed their penalties.

So I am delighted to introduce our 3 guests today Dr. John Bustard (Ulster University), Dr. Nicole Ferdinand (Oxford Brookes), and Dr. Nigel Williams Uni Portsmouth who are members of  Ruaire and have written  Euro 2020: could Twitter stop racist abuse before it happens?.

But first, to summarise our previous weeks’ chats about SOSTAC® Plans ….. at the heart of marketing is building relationships via brands, automated journeys, personalised & passionate chat bots. We have discussed

• Relationships – Chinese Girlbot 465m personalised relationships with boys – AI -Driven chatbots – prsmith.org/blog
• Relationships – England Football Manager & his Customers & Stakeholders– 60m+ via a letter from Gareth Southgate – playerstribune.com called Dear England
• Relationships – with media channels (social media) – Social Media Boycotts by the Premier League + Other sports – Guardian article (29 Apr). NB the  England and Wales Cricket Board, Premiership Rugby and the Lawn Tennis Association + F1 World Champ: Lewis Hamilton – demanded that   the social media giants to do more to eradicate online hate.  NOTE: Ahead of the boycott, the Professional Footballers Association labelled Twitter’s response to abusive posts aimed towards players as “absolutely unacceptable”.

Today, we have three experts here in the SOSTAC ® Plans club who can help the social media companies to rid us of most racist hate posts. They are from an AI Research Think Tank RUAIRE   (Responsible Use of AI in Recreation & International Events)

Social media can nurture loneliness, rage, extremism relationships

We know that social media can nurture loneliness, rage, extremism relationships

I saw Jeff Orlowski, director of the must-see documentary, The Social Dilemma,  interviewed on CNN TV 10 Jan 2021, saying:.

– Lies spread six times faster on Twitter than the truth (MIT)

– ‘The truth cannot keep up in a system that profits off of misinformation’

– We know social platforms can push radicalisation, it can be built into its algorithms – in the systems

– Insider leaked research from FB allegedly revealed that 64% of people who were radicalised because of the group recommendations suggestions that FB algorithms were pushing out….

It seems that social media can push people towards radical thought. interestingly, Dr John Bustard’s recent LinkedIn post ‘Here is a short blog relating to recent research on twitter’ mentions:  Director General of MI5, Ken McCallum says ‘racism presents a threat to the UK from ‘hostile states’ who are fanning right-wing extremism as a means to create a terrorist threat within the UK (quoted on the BBC Radio 4 show ): “Racism is a toxic issue feeding into right-wing terrorism.” There is clearly therefore a need for event teams, their sponsoring countries and tech companies to work together to combat this issue of misinformation and disinformation.

Interestingly, The Chief Whistle-Blower in Cambridge Analytica, Christopher Wylie, openly talks about  the ‘Destruction of society’  in his shocking video in my 2018 blog post called:  ‘The Dark Arts Of Marketing – Breaking Down Society to Create a New Culture’  in which he says: “if you want to fundamentally change society, you first have to break it. And it’s only when you break it is when you can remould the pieces into your vision of a new society. This was the weapon that Steve Bannon* wanted to fight his culture war.”  PRSmith.org/blog

So we had a heated discussion last week – really about ‘culture wars’, Gareth Southgate and his players taking a stand on this. Then came the Euro Final – tweets started flowing – before, during and after the match & soon after they turned racist – picking on the three young brave black lads who missed their penalties – turned nasty. It was a bonanza of pure hate racism. Here is a summary of the themes being used alongside  #Euro2020final before, during and after the game, as analysed by Bustard, Ferdinand and Williams 2021. They used the publicly accessible tool TAGS which archives Twitter postings via a search application programming interface. While this source is not exhaustive, they were able to collect 32,765 tweets using the hashtag #Euro2020final in the hour leading up to kick-off, 100,282 during the match and 44,554 after the match until midnight.

They then applied topic modelling, an approach that uses machine learning to identify underlying themes in large bodies of text.  The following visualisations present the three most prominent topics during each time period and the three most prominent keywords associated with each of them.

 

 

These graphics are from:  Euro 2020: could Twitter stop racist abuse before it happens? (theconversation.com)

Twitter responded to the abuse on its platform by using a combination of machine learning based automation and human review to remove over 1,000 tweets and permanently suspended several accounts. However, ‘this action failed to effectively suppress the negative picture that emerged after the #Euro2020final. We suggest that Twitter could be taking action to stop online firestorms, even before they start.’ (Bustard et al 2021) The sad truth is: ‘Twitter trolls know that racist or hateful content about a high profile event will be widely condemned online. But condemnation of racist or hateful content only serves to further magnify the impact of these posts on such an event. Any positive message will be overshadowed by the discussions of hateful or racist posts.’ (Bustard et al 2021).

Racist hate tweets impact could be ‘minimised using tools Twitter have already developed, such as prompting users to rethink their tweets that may include harmful language. These tools could be adapted to provide warnings that encourage users to think before they retweet…’ (Bustard et al 2021). The other really sad fact is that ‘the discussions the day after the Euro 2020 final should have been about a history-making team, not about the abuse that a small number of trolls were able to turn into a firestorm’ (Bustard et al 2021).

The Prime Minister and the  Secretary of State

for the Home Department, Priti Patel, both condemned this racism YET they previously refused to condemn fans booing their own English team players taking the knee. Priti Patel said it was ‘gesture politics’ and that ‘everyone has a right to boo’.

So the yobos took the cue & smashed, and brutalised their own stadium and city and beat up Italians – having had the ‘apparent approval’ to behave like yobboes by the highest office in the land.

Wembley waste

With racists verbally attacking the three black players who missed the penalties , for me, it proves the English players were 100% correct when they ‘took the knee’, since racism is still, in 2021, big in football. All the more reason for taking the knee. Plus solidarity with American sports players suffering from racism.

The English central defender,  Tyrone Ming  called out, via twitter,  the home secretary Priti Patel –  who would not condemn English fans booing ‘taking the knee’. Originally Patel called taking the knee ‘gesture politics’ and then said she was appalled by the subsequent racism! Here’s Mings tweet.

 

Microsoft News even featured an article (from the Independent)  ‘A fire they poured petrol on’: Boris Johnson and Priti Patel condemned over football racism ‘hypocrisy’ about both the Prime Minister’s and the Home Secretary’s lack of real anti-racism stance, in fact, they ‘poured petrol on it.’

And now the PM  wants to discuss with Social Media companies how to stop racist tweets.

There is an opportunity for social media companies to, once again, clean up their act, plus political leaders to show real leadership (or any leadership) in the fight against racism.

PLUS We now also have some people who could help the PM to help the Social Media companies to stop the rampant hate…..to stop racist content spreading like wildfire.

This is a must-read: Ruaire (2021) Euro 2020: could Twitter stop racist abuse before it happens,    TheConversation.com

I am so pleased these researchers have stood up. Nothing is impossible. Particularly, it seems, in a fast-moving world of AI. Hence a screaming opportunity to use the technology for the good of all humans on the planet.   

Thank you: Nicole Ferdinand (Oxford Brookes), John Bustard (Ulster University) and Nigel Williams Uni Portsmouth.

The Research Collective, RUAIRE,  stands for Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence in Recreation and Events. RUAIRE is focused on investigating the ethical and effective use of Artificial Intelligence and emerging technologies in the fields of Tourism and Events.

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If you liked this, you might also like:

• How Rats Work = How Twitter Works?
• Chinese Girlbot has 465m personalised relationships with boys 
• The Dark Arts Of Marketing – Breaking Down Society to Create a New Culture
• Facebook Data: How it was used by Cambridge Analytica & Might Be Used in 2020 Election & Still Is Used in 2021? 
• Marketing Gone Wrong: Is the Dark Web Worse Than Subliminal Seduction?
• How Trump Won (a SOSTAC Analysis) – Part 1

 

• PM – 14/07/2021 – BBC Sounds    BBC 4 PM radio programme where Dr Nicole Ferdinand (one of our clubhouse speakers) has a robust discussion on the topic and others including authorities come in with different views

 

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