Chicago (USA). A study published this Friday by the International Federation of athleticsWorld Athletics, found that 60% of the cases of abuse in social networks registered in the World Cups in Oregon 2022 were directed towards women, with Twitter as the main source of verbal insults and threats.
As part of its program to protect the safety and well-being of athletes, World Athletics monitored the Twitter and Instagram profiles of 461 athletes between July 10 and August 1, 2022.
The study detected 59 cases of discriminatory messages, coming from 57 different users and directed towards 27 of the athletes whose profiles were controlled.
Of these insults and threats, 40 percent were sexist and directed towards women.
Twitter was the platform on which the most insults were published and the study highlighted that most of these abuses were not related to World Cup events or results, but to “controversial” issues of athletics in general.
60% of the abuses were racist and included the use of monkey emoticons.
World Athletics requested guarantee measures from the social networks in question to protect the athletes and in 5% of the cases, the insults and threats were so serious that the international federation considered sending reports to the authorities.
“The results of this study are worrying, but it is very important to know how and when our athletes experience abuse on social media so that we can take steps to protect them and prevent it from happening in the future,” said the president of World Athleticsthe British Sebastian Coe.
