FIFA’s digital monitoring systems identified 89,000 abusive posts on social media during the World Cup group stage, a 13-fold increase from the 2022 tournament in Qatar, world football’s governing body said Wednesday.
The spike was recorded after FIFA’s Social Media Protection Service scanned more than six million posts and comments, a 33% increase from 2022. Racial abuse accounted for 11% of all flagged offensive content.
The share of racially motivated attacks represents a 3% rise compared with the group stage in Qatar, with FIFA saying it marked a “significant increase in the objectively worst, most offensive material” on social media platforms.
“Available to all teams, players, coaches and match officials participating in FIFA tournaments, SMPS protects them and their followers from experiencing discriminatory and offensive content,” FIFA said in a statement.
The SMPS uses a mix of technology and human moderation to detect, filter and block racist, discriminatory or threatening messages while also protecting players’ followers from exposure to abusive content.
FIFA said 225,000 posts were identified for human review, of which moderators verified 89,000 posts as abusive and took action, with about 1,000 accounts escalated for further investigation.
The expanded 48-team tournament format compared with 32 in Qatar also played a role in the increased volume of content analyzed, FIFA added.
The service’s automated moderation tools also hid about 181,000 hateful comments from team accounts.
Meanwhile, more than two million comments were moderated during the group stage, including spam and content from bots or fake accounts, a four-fold increase from 2022.
“As part of the evolution of SMPS, the service also collates evidence for law enforcement,” FIFA said.
“More than 100 examples have been identified that meet legal thresholds for preparing case files.”
Netherlands players Justin Kluivert, Quinten Timber and Crysencio Summerville were subjected to racist abuse online after missing penalty kicks in the shootout defeat by Morocco in the Round of 32.
