Martin Keown wants more clubs to join Rangers in social media blackout
Martin Keown has backed Rangers and other clubs for taking a stance against online abuse but claims more needs to be done.
On Thursday, Rangers joined Swansea and Birmingham in announcing their players and management will boycott social media for seven days.
Kemar Roofe and Glen Kamara have both been racially abused on social media since the Slavia Prague defeat last month, in which Slavia’s Ondrej Kudela is alleged to have racially abused Kamara.
On Thursday night, as Arsenal prepared to face Slavia in the Europa League, an interview was shown with much-maligned Gunners attacker Willian, who revealed his family had been subjected to abuse due to his supposed poor performances in North London.
BT Sport host Darrell Currie hit out at online abusers on BT Sport 1.
Currie said: “We saw Thierry Henry take a stand last week, he came off social media altogether. Swansea earlier today announced a ‘social blackout’, if you like, for a week in protest. Birmingham and Rangers have followed suit as well.
“It’s not just abuse of a racial or sexist nature as well – we see it all the time and more. Any type of abuse, these days in particular, when so much is written and said about this, is pathetic and ridiculous.
“How do we stop it? You heard what Willian said there about comments about his family.”
Arsenal legend Keown replied: “Well it’s a scandal, isn’t it? And when it goes to the families, that takes on another element of a huge issue as you have to protect your family, asking family to ignore the comments that are being made.
“We need to create change. We need governors to be involved and players are now of course making a stand.
“Thierry Henry did that very recently – he’s come off social media.
“I think we need to do it on a bigger scale.
“I wonder whether all the clubs need to get together to actually boycott Twitter in some mass campaign because just individuals doing it is obviously not having quite enough impact at the moment.”
Former England Women player Karen Carney deleted her Twitter account earlier this season due to sexist abuse she’d received online.
She supported Willian and echoed Keown’s calls for clubs to align and take the fight to social media companies.
“It’s unacceptable,” Carney said. “Willian getting threats towards his family, it’s completely unacceptable.
“Football clubs coming together and players coming together, it’s the right thing to do.
“We can’t give people the platform or the time or space to comment on such ridiculous things.”
More should be done
We applaud Rangers for following Swansea and Birmingham in announced a social media blackout from their players and staff.
However, one question is burning in our minds – is it enough?
Will Twitter care that Rangers players are doing this? Will Instagram be bothered by a lack of posts from Swansea and Birmingham players? Honestly, we don’t think they’ll even notice.
It needs to be on a far bigger scale. It would have been great for Rangers to get together with the rest of the clubs in the Scottish Premiership – or even the entire SPFL – to do something similar. A mass protest.
Wouldn’t it be great if a team down south with a massive following like Manchester United, Arsenal or Liverpool did the same?
It seems as though after every single match, a player is being abused in some form on social media and Twitter, Facebook and Instagram simply do not do anywhere near enough to prevent it.
In other Rangers news, Kamara’s lawyer has torn Kudela’s defence to shreds.