Facebook announced on Sunday that it has deleted the accounts of Instagram users who used racist insults against soccer players.
Facebook, the owner of the social network Instagram, announced on Sunday that it has removed the accounts of users who used racist insults against players from the Welsh soccer team, Rabbi Matondo and Ben Cabango. The decision was made hours after Matondo publicly complained that the platform had done nothing against the xenophobic comments.
Matondo, a winger who plays for Stoke, and defender Swansea Cabango, who are two English D2 players, were the target of insulting messages on their Instagram accounts, after their team won a friendly match against Mexico (1-0) on Saturday.
“To investigate the origin of racially motivated messages in social media posts” targeting the players, the Welsh police said. A Facebook spokesperson confirmed the deletion of the accounts from which the messages originated and said the company is working on other measures to address online insults.
“Another week Instagram does nothing at all”
“We do not tolerate racist insults on Instagram and we have deleted the accounts that sent this type of message to Ben Cabango and Rabi Matondo this weekend,” he said in a statement.
He added: “We have introduced features that allow public figures not to receive private messages from people who do not follow them, and we announced recently that we will take more stringent measures when people do not follow the rules in private messages.”
“It continues … another week that Instagram does absolutely nothing against racist insults. While it will suspend my account if I put pictures of the match against Mexico. Priorities …” Matondo, disappointed, tweeted shortly before that.
With the Welsh players coming in about a week’s time without the players falling victim to racist insults in the UK, including stars such as Anthony Martial, Paul Pogba and Marcus Rashford.
France’s top scorer, Thierry Henry, the 1998 world champion and former Arsenal idol, announced Friday that he will be absent from social media networks as long as the platforms do not work more against “racism”, “intimidation” and “the resulting psychological torture.”
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