“We couldn’t report on this statistic and not take action
ourselves”: BBC Sport introduces new policies to combat hateful
social media comments
“We couldn’t report on this statistic and not take action
ourselves”: BBC Sport introduces new policies to combat hateful
social media comments
BBC Sport has a
message for its 8.5 million followers on Twitter. The pinned
tweet is part promise, part mission statement.
The BBC exists for all of us, so it should represent all of
us.
That means BBC Sport covers a wide range of sports and stories.
But, as we do that, our comments sections on social media can often
attract hateful messages. We want our platforms to be a respectful
place for discussion, constructive criticism, debate and opinion.
We know the vast majority of you – our 33 million social media
followers – want that too.
So here’s what we’re doing:
We will block people bringing hate to our comments
sections;
We will report the most serious cases to the relevant
authorities;
We will work to make our accounts kind and respectful
places;
We will keep growing our coverage of women’s sports, and keep
covering issues and discussions around equality in sport.
We also want your help.
If you see a reply to BBC Sport posts with an expression of hate
on the basis of race, colour, gender, nationality, ethnicity,
disability, religion, sexuality, sex, age or class please flag the
URL to the post in question by emailing
socialmoderation.sport@bbc.co.uk
Hate won’t stop us in our goal of representing all of us.
Together we will strive to make our social media accounts a safe
space for everyone.
The new rules, which apply across the public broadcaster’s
various social media accounts, follow a new survey that showed
more than a third of elite female athletes (“sportswomen”) have
been subjected to abuse on social media — double the percent
reported in 2015. Racism, misogyny, and death threats were “sadly
common,” according to the results.
“Too fat” “Not really British” “Hope you die of cancer”
In the biggest women’s sport study ever carried out by
@bbcsport,
almost a third of athletes said they had received social media
abuse.
Full story: https://t.co/FfUboCKXKT pic.twitter.com/tjQ5jCixkR
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport)
August 10, 2020
At @bbcsport,
we felt we couldn’t report on this statistic and not take action
ourselves.
So we have strengthened our stance on tackling hate speech in
our social media comments. pic.twitter.com/w11UiQStfg
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport)
August 10, 2020
BBC Sport producer Caroline Chapman explained
the policy’s genesis to
Everything in Moderation, a weekly newsletter from freelance
journalist Ben
Whitelaw about — you guessed it — moderating content
online.
I’ve worked as a producer on the social media team for a
couple of years now and while there has always been a certain
amount of negativity directed towards certain subjects (mainly
women’s sport), we were seeing it more and more across all our
platforms and hateful comments were also appearing frequently on
any post to do with race, LGBTQ+ and equality issues.
There had been a few occasions where a couple of blue tick
accounts on Twitter had rightly called us out for seemingly not
taking action on these comments. When the BBC Sport website
surveyed over 500 elite British sportswomen, 30% said they had been
trolled online. I didn’t feel like we could report on
this stat and not do something to try and help the situation, so I
approached BBC Sport’s editor with a plan for how we could
practically tackle the issue.
BBC Sport has more
than 33 million followers across its Twitter, Facebook, and
Instagram accounts and Chapman said the section typically sees more
than 15,000 comments per day.
That volume can make moderation tricky — especially on
Twitter, the platform with “the most negativity,”
according to Chapman.
The BBC’s moderation services department have access to our
Facebook and Instagram accounts, and will largely hide/delete/block
anything which overtly breaks our guidelines. But for technical
reasons they can’t moderate Twitter for us, and it’s on this
platform that we find the most negativity. Since we introduced our
new stance, it has been the job of the daily producer to perform
regular moderation checks on Twitter, as well as keeping across our
new inbox where users can flag comments themselves. The producers
also keep an eye on certain stories on the other platforms – the
stories we know are likely to be a target for trolls.
You can read the BBC’s message to “social media
trolls” or take a look at the full results of that
British sportswomen survey.
Iâm really proud to say I
worked on commissioning and writing this.
Itâs long overdue and itâs clear the BBC as a whole has *a
lot* of work to do, in so many ways.
But I hope itâs a small step in the right direction for sport,
at least. https://t.co/ZiCD6nIXiN
â Caroline Chapman (@caz_chapman)
August 10, 2020
Some people are horrible. Did
similar work before 2018 World Cup with a post moderation tool on
FB/IG. Real fans appreciated it. Itâs called an âonline
communityâ for a reason. https://t.co/rmhweB4Edv
â Alex Stone (@AlexStone7)
August 10, 2020
As well as the insights into
social media abuse. This womenâs sport report from @BBCSport is
a
BBC Sport has a
message for its 8.5 million followers on Twitter. The pinned
tweet is part promise, part mission statement.
The BBC exists for all of us, so it should represent all of
us.
That means BBC Sport covers a wide range of sports and stories.
But, as we do that, our comments sections on social media can often
attract hateful messages. We want our platforms to be a respectful
place for discussion, constructive criticism, debate and opinion.
We know the vast majority of you – our 33 million social media
followers – want that too.
So here’s what we’re doing:
We will block people bringing hate to our comments
sections;
We will report the most serious cases to the relevant
authorities;
We will work to make our accounts kind and respectful
places;
We will keep growing our coverage of women’s sports, and keep
covering issues and discussions around equality in sport.
We also want your help.
If you see a reply to BBC Sport posts with an expression of hate
on the basis of race, colour, gender, nationality, ethnicity,
disability, religion, sexuality, sex, age or class please flag the
URL to the post in question by emailing
socialmoderation.sport@bbc.co.uk
Hate won’t stop us in our goal of representing all of us.
Together we will strive to make our social media accounts a safe
space for everyone.
The new rules, which apply across the public broadcaster’s
various social media accounts, follow a new survey that showed
more than a third of elite female athletes (“sportswomen”) have
been subjected to abuse on social media — double the percent
reported in 2015. Racism, misogyny, and death threats were “sadly
common,” according to the results.
“Too fat” “Not really British” “Hope you die of cancer”
In the biggest women’s sport study ever carried out by
@bbcsport,
almost a third of athletes said they had received social media
abuse.
Full story: https://t.co/FfUboCKXKT pic.twitter.com/tjQ5jCixkR
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport)
August 10, 2020
At @bbcsport,
we felt we couldn’t report on this statistic and not take action
ourselves.
So we have strengthened our stance on tackling hate speech in
our social media comments. pic.twitter.com/w11UiQStfg
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport)
August 10, 2020
BBC Sport producer Caroline Chapman explained
the policy’s genesis to
Everything in Moderation, a weekly newsletter from freelance
journalist Ben
Whitelaw about — you guessed it — moderating content
online.
I’ve worked as a producer on the social media team for a
couple of years now and while there has always been a certain
amount of negativity directed towards certain subjects (mainly
women’s sport), we were seeing it more and more across all our
platforms and hateful comments were also appearing frequently on
any post to do with race, LGBTQ+ and equality issues.
There had been a few occasions where a couple of blue tick
accounts on Twitter had rightly called us out for seemingly not
taking action on these comments. When the BBC Sport website
surveyed over 500 elite British sportswomen, 30% said they had been
trolled online. I didn’t feel like we could report on
this stat and not do something to try and help the situation, so I
approached BBC Sport’s editor with a plan for how we could
practically tackle the issue.
BBC Sport has more
than 33 million followers across its Twitter, Facebook, and
Instagram accounts and Chapman said the section typically sees more
than 15,000 comments per day.
That volume can make moderation tricky — especially on
Twitter, the platform with “the most negativity,”
according to Chapman.
The BBC’s moderation services department have access to our
Facebook and Instagram accounts, and will largely hide/delete/block
anything which overtly breaks our guidelines. But for technical
reasons they can’t moderate Twitter for us, and it’s on this
platform that we find the most negativity. Since we introduced our
new stance, it has been the job of the daily producer to perform
regular moderation checks on Twitter, as well as keeping across our
new inbox where users can flag comments themselves. The producers
also keep an eye on certain stories on the other platforms – the
stories we know are likely to be a target for trolls.
You can read the BBC’s message to “social media
trolls” or take a look at the full results of that
British sportswomen survey.
Iâm really proud to say I
worked on commissioning and writing this.
Itâs long overdue and itâs clear the BBC as a whole has *a
lot* of work to do, in so many ways.
But I hope itâs a small step in the right direction for sport,
at least. https://t.co/ZiCD6nIXiN
â Caroline Chapman (@caz_chapman)
August 10, 2020
Some people are horrible. Did
similar work before 2018 World Cup with a post moderation tool on
FB/IG. Real fans appreciated it. Itâs called an âonline
communityâ for a reason. https://t.co/rmhweB4Edv
â Alex Stone (@AlexStone7)
August 10, 2020
As well as the insights into
social media abuse. This womenâs sport report from @BBCSport is
a real eye opener â covering pay, media coverage, funding,
periods and much more. Itâs worth reading in full #WomenInSport
https://t.co/UlCqqLYKHu https://t.co/zzC54hImR9 pic.twitter.com/CzUnyjI3Bj
â Emma Ballard (@Medi8Emma)
August 10, 2020
We often forget that sports
personalities are people too. They have the same vulnerability and
emotions as we do. Just because they're in the public eye, doesn't
make them immune to hateful comments. Please. Be Kind. And let's
enjoy sport with more decorum and respect. https://t.co/KEfuuNlSb3
â Aatif Nawaz (@AatifNawaz)
August 10, 2020