Gary Neville praises ‘bravery’ of Marcus Rashford for stand against social media abuse
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Gary Neville has praised the ‘bravery’ of Marcus Rashford for taking a stand against social media abuse, saying it has been ‘amazing to watch’.
The Manchester United and England striker demanded social media platforms deactivate accounts used to send abuse to players, manager and referees after a spate of incidents in recent weeks.
Rashford was racially abused on social media sites, while Newcastle United manager Steve Bruce and referee Mike Dean have also been targeted.
Marcus Rashford has been praised for taking a stand against social media giants after a spate of incidents in which football players, managers and referees suffered abuse
Gary Neville praised the ‘bravery’ shown by Rashford for taking a stand against online abuse
It comes as Sportsmail revealed Twitter and Facebook told Premier League clubs they have no plans to stop users creating anonymous accounts.
Speaking to Sky Sports, 23-year-old Rashford said: ‘Online abuse should be easy to stop. You just deactivate the accounts.
‘It’s very easy to make four or five accounts but if you’ve got to block them out, you block them out.
‘I feel that’s on the actual social media companies themselves – Instagram, Twitter.
‘If they see anyone that’s being racially abused or abused in any way their accounts should be deleted straight away. That’s one way of getting rid of most of it, if not all of it.’
Marcus Rashford was targeted on Instagram after Manchester United’s 0-0 draw with Arsenal
Rashford was racially abused on social media after United’s goalless draw at Arsenal last month but rose above it by refusing to share screengrabs of the offensive messages and writing: ‘Sorry if you were looking for a strong reaction, you’re simply not going to get it here.’
But with instances of those within football being abused multiplying by the week, Rashford has spoken out again and his stand was praised by Neville.
‘If you look at what is going on right now, a player 20 years ago wouldn’t have done this,’ the former Man United defender said on Sky Sports.
‘It would have been seen as a distraction, by senior players as arrogant and something you shouldn’t do – certainly by managers.
‘What you see now in Marcus Rashford and young players they want to go above and beyond.
‘Look at Jadon Sancho going to Dortmund and making brave decisions.
The leaders of English football sent a letter to Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey (right) and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (left) about levels of abuse on their platforms
‘I have to say the bravery Marcus Rashford and some young players are showing is quite remarkable and amazing to watch.
‘Social media has become a vehicle for a lot of abuse, but there’s been a lot of abuse in football stadiums over the last 15 to 20 years as well. It’s not just social media.
‘It’s a positive when used correctly as football stadiums are in full flow. Every arena can be negative. Football stadiums can be negative, social media can be negative.
‘There’s an accountability on social media, people think when they’re behind phones they are protected.
Chelsea defender Antonio Rudiger suggested social media companies ‘don’t care’ about abuse if they are making money
‘They need to remove that and be made accountable for what they say in the same way if they had said that to somebody in the street.’
Twitter and Facebook have made it clear to leading Premier League clubs that they will never end the practice of allowing users to open anonymous accounts and that using forms of identification to verify accounts is not going to happen.
Instead, the social media giants will continue to toughen up the policing of social media abuse in-house using their own technological tools.
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