FIFA says World Cup sees 13-fold surge in online abuse

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MIAMI -- FIFA’s digital watchdogs uncovered 89,000 abusive posts on social media during the group stage of the World Cup, marking a 13-fold increase from the 2022 edition in Qatar, world soccer’s governing body said on Wednesday.

The alarming spike was recorded after FIFA’s Social Media Protection Service (SMPS) scanned over six million posts and comments -- a 33 per cent jump from 2022 -- with racial abuse accounting for 11 per cent of all detected offensive messages.

The share of racially motivated attacks represents a 3 per cent rise compared to the group stage in Qatar, with FIFA saying it marked a “significant increase in the objectively worst, most offensive material” on social media platforms.

“Available to all teams, players, coaches and match officials participating at FIFA tournaments, SMPS protects them and their followers from experiencing discriminatory and offensive content,” FIFA said in a statement.

The SMPS uses a mix of technology and human moderation to detect, filter and block racist, discriminatory or threatening messages, while also protecting players’ followers from exposure to abusive content.

FIFA said 225,000 posts were identified for human review, of which moderators verified 89,000 posts as abusive and took action, with approximately 1,000 accounts escalated for further investigation.

The expanded tournament format with 48 teams compared to 32 in Qatar has also played a role in the increased volume of content analyzed, FIFA added.

The service’s automated moderation tools also hid approximately 181,000 hateful comments from team accounts.

Meanwhile, over two million comments were moderated during the group stage, including spam and content from bots or fake accounts -- a four-fold increase from 2022.

“As part of the evolution of SMPS, the service also collates evidence for law enforcement,” FIFA said.

“Over 100 examples have been identified which pass the legal thresholds for preparing legal case files against them.”

Netherlands players Justin Kluivert, Quinten Timber and Crysencio Summerville suffered racist abuse online after missing penalty kicks in the shootout defeat by Morocco in the last 32.

Reporting by Rohith Nair in Miami; Editing by Ken Ferris, Reuters