WTA director of safeguarding Lindsay Brandon is calling on social media companies to do a better job of detecting online abuse as the WTA official highlights that an athlete’s safety should be a top priority.
Earlier this week in Dubai, Emma Raducanu was met by a man in Dubai who “showed a fixated behavior.”
A day later, that same person came to watch the Briton’s match against Emma Raducanu – he was escorted out of the stadium and banned from attending any tournaments after the 22-year-old expressed fear for her safety.
And that incident sparked discussions about the players’ safety on the Tour.
While players often praise the WTA for the security measures they have in place during tournaments, one thing remains an issue – online abuse.
“I absolutely believe social media companies owe a great deal more to their users to better protect them – especially female athletes who we know are a primary target for this type of mistreatment,” Brandon told The Guardian.
“Unfortunately I think in our current climate we’re seeing deregulation, loss of fact-checking, certain protections for some users and not for others.”
Brandon on the use of an AI tool to tackle online abuse
Last year, the WTA started using Threat Matrix – an AI tool that tries to watch abusive and threatening messages to players.
While it has helped in some capacity, it is still far away from fully resolving the issue.
“In some cases we’re able to proactively catch this online abuse, where you may have someone that is exhibiting fixated behavior on a player, even if they’re hiding behind anonymous screen names for example,” Brandon added.
“But I think social media companies stepping up is one of the main missing pieces to help solve this issue.”
In most cases, insulting and threatening messages come from angry gamblers, who then take out their frustration on a player.
Tennis World USA