Cyber bullying has been a growing issue. It seems that every week there is another incident of someone being the victim of extreme abuse via social media. There was Gamergate last year where women involved in the video game industry were subject to violent threats on twitter. There was the recent incident with the actress Ashley Judd where she was sent many abusive tweets. It seems that these attacks are predominately on Twitter. I wanted to see if this anecdotal theory was true, and much to my surprise I found some evidence proving its validity. Kick It Out, a British organization working for equality and inclusion in soccer, has done research over the past 3 seasons of premier league football on cyber bullies. What they found confirmed my notions.
Virtual Locations of Cyber Bullying on British Soccer Player
| Location of Attacks | |
|---|---|
| 88 | |
| 8 | |
| Forums | 3 |
| Blogs | 1 |
Kick it Out also tracked the type of discrimination the attackers used against the pro-soccer players. They found that race, gender, and sexual orientation made up the most common types of discrimination.
Type of Discrimination Used Against Pro-Soccer Players
| Race | 28 |
|---|---|
| Gender | 25 |
| Sexual Orientation | 19 |
| Disability | 11 |
| Anti-Semitism | 9 |
| Islamophobia | 5 |
| Age | 2 |
| Gender Reassignment | 1 |
Twitter has an abuse problem and many outlets are realizing it. I wonder if what they will do to combat this problem as it has seen its growth in users plateauing at 300 million over the past year. Will they take the necessary steps to fix this abuse problem?
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