London: English football clubs and related organizations will switch off their accounts on social networks for four days starting April 30 in response to ongoing discrimination against players and other members of the footballing community on the internet, the Football Association (FA), the governing body of association football in England, announced on Saturday.
“We will join the Premier League, EFL, PFA, LMA, PGMOL, Kick It Out, Women in Football and the FSA in uniting for a social media boycott from 3pm on Friday 30 April to 11.59pm on Monday 3 May, in response to the ongoing and sustained discriminatory abuse received online by players and many others connected to football,” the FA said in a statement.
“Boycott action from football in isolation will, of course, not eradicate the scourge of online discriminatory abuse, but it will demonstrate that the game is willing to take voluntary and proactive steps in this continued fight. Finally … we urge the UK Government to ensure its Online Safety Bill will bring in strong legislation to make social media companies more accountable for what happens on their platforms,” the FA added.
In February, these organizations sent a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, requesting the social media companies to make more efforts to stamp out abuse, including filtering, blocking and swift takedowns of offensive posts.