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September 16, 2022
Arsenal FC has becomes the third European football club to partner with Pixstory – an integrity-based social media platform – to reduce online abuse and hate speech . With a mission of zero tolerance for online toxicity, Pixstory will work with Arsenal to create a safer digital environment.
In March 2021, the Club launched a social media campaign called #StopOnlineAbuse as part of a collective effort within football to combat discrimination across social media. It has pledged to work with governing bodies, clubs and partners to eradicate abuse and hate speech across the game.
According to Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulatory authority, seven in ten Premier League players are targeted with hundreds of abusive tweets sent to footballers every day. One in 12 of these attacks targeted a characteristic such as race or gender, and half of all abuse was directed at 12 particular players. Additionally, among fans who came across abuse online, more than half found the content extremely offensive, but a significant proportion didn’t take any action in response by using the flagging or reporting tools.
“The unprecedented level of hate and misinformation amplified by social media is the largest threat to humanity. Pixstory models itself along the lines of clean energy to build an alternative on the internet, let’s call it Clean Social. We want to leverage the power of sports to bring social change,” said Appu Esthose Suresh, Founder of Pixstory.
Pixstory is a relatively new social media platform committed to transparency and decency in which “users are held accountable to the truth.” As with other social media apps, users can post photos and stories and engage with other users and their content. However, what sets them apart is the provision of a multi-dimensional template that allows users to challenge inaccuracies or abuse and support quality control. This is done through verification and integrity scores for accounts and challenge and support functions that allow users to question or validate posts with rationale and an AI system that detects context-based hate speech through a constantly evolving process.
Arsenal’s social media handle @Arsenal joined the “ethical social media platform” as part of the new partnership. “We’re committed to fighting the toxicity and abuse that has become all too common online. We’ve done a lot of work internally to protect our players from harmful abuse and we already work with external partners to help us take meaningful action against abusers,” said Juliet Slot, Arsenal’s Chief Commerical Officer.
Other participating teams include Paris Saint-Germain Féminine and Juventus who partnered with the platform late last year. Giorgio Ricci, Juventus’ Chief Revenue Officer expressed that with a growing younger generation of “digital natives”, platforms like Pixstory help spread the principles of openness, responsibility and success.
Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus players are both taking part in campaigns to fight toxic speech online and to encourage people to be courteous during discussions.
NBA all-star Dwight Howard serves as brand ambassador for the platform. “Everybody is just looking for negativity and things to say, ‘Man, look at this.’ We want people to look at somebody and smile and say, ‘Hey man, I love him, I love her, I wanna give that person a hug.’ We want to spread some love. That’s all,” he stated.
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