Sportradar Launches Service To Tackle Online Athlete Abuse
Sportradar Integrity Services has launched a new solution designed to safeguard professional athletes on social media.
The new service will be available to federations, leagues, and governing bodies and is designed to protect mental health and wellbeing by discouraging future trolling and both investigating and intervening in each case, disrupting the troll’s ability to continue sending abuse online.
The service also identifies individuals behind anonymous troll and ‘burner’ accounts which have been used to direct abuse towards athletes. Sportradar says it is then able to locate the user, as well as build a picture of how they conduct the online abuse.
The findings of the investigation are then shared, with further support provided in pursuing an appropriate course of action, including the removal of abusive accounts from social media platforms and working with law enforcement to bring legal proceedings.
Andreas Krannich, Managing Director – Integrity Services, Sportradar said: “Maintaining the integrity of sport and ensuring that it’s safe, fair and enjoyable for all, has long been our priority. Now, with this new service, we’ve strengthened our position in this space by safeguarding the athletes who compete in it and protecting them from online harm and social media abuse.
“We are providing a tangible output that our partners can share with their athletes and we’re providing support to those partners in pursuing an appropriate course of action. The service we now have in place can act as a deterrent to future online abuse and create real change, particularly when people see the impact it has.
“We believe this safeguarding solution can have a similar positive impact on sport as our Fraud Detection System has had on match fixing, where we’ve reported more than 5000 suspicious matches across global sport in 11 years.”
The product was trialled at the Exo-Tennis Series across Germany and the USA.
Players from the ATP and WTA Tours, including Dustin Brown, Taylor Townsend and Sachia Vickery, shared abusive messages they had received on social media. Following its investigation, Sportradar provided the event organisers with details of the problem accounts and a set of recommendations on the best course of action to pursue in order to prevent future trolling and abuse.
