Jenna Watson-USA TODAY Sports
One in five players — 152 total — received targeted discriminatory, abusive or threatening messages on social media during the 2023 Women’s World Cup, according to joint findings from FIFA and world players’ union FIFPRO. U.S. players received over double the volume of abusive posts of the next-most-abused country, according to the study, with a few key players the primary target.
The report comes as part of FIFA’s attempt to protect players from abusive messages during the World Cup. FIFA has used the services at eight events over the past 12 monhts.
A total of 5.1 million posts were analyzed by humans, and something called Threat Matrix artificial intelligence, across major social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube. Over 2,000 accounts of players and coaches were monitored with the intent of preventing abusive messages from reaching athletes.
“Homophobia was prolific,” the report notes, with almost twice the percentage of such…
