BT campaign tackles online hate
April 30, 2021
By Colin Mann
UK multiplay telco BT is launching its ‘Draw The Line’ campaign to stand against hate speech and abuse on social media. The campaign aims to address the problem by raising awareness of the impact of online hate and advocating change, as research commissioned by BT and YouGov shows that over one in 10 have experienced some form of online abuse in the last year and over 1.8 million people have experienced threatening behaviour online in the last 12 months.
The campaign will spotlight the issue across BT Sport channels for the remainder of the season and see the implementation of an Anti Online Abuse Policy. BT will proactively respond, delete, block or report hate and abuse to ensure its own social channels are safer spaces for their communities.
Wider data from the YouGov research showed that minority groups are more likely to receive abuse, with a quarter of the population having seen racist abuse online. Women are also significantly more likely to suffer online hate, with one in five women that received online abuse saying it was about their appearance.
‘Draw the Line’ has been developed with support from Glitch, a UK charity aimed at making the Internet safer for everyone. Glitch training has upskilled the BT team to become active bystanders online, as well as help develop an AI Abuse tracker tool, which tracks the level of abuse on Twitter. This has shown that:
- During high profile football matches which were tracked, three in 10 abusive tweets were sent before a ball is even kicked
- During one 90 minute match, there was a 350 per cent increase in abusive Tweets in just five minutes as teams failed to score
- Across all the matches tracked, a 65 per cent increase in religious abuse and a 45 per cent increase in sexual orientation abuse was observed
- During the course of another tracked match – an average of one in 10 abusive Tweets in the UK were sent from ‘Troll’ accounts. A high proportion of participants in the YouGov survey reinforced this saying those who had experienced abuse said it came through troll accounts.
“For too long we have just accepted that hate online is the norm,” declared Marc Allera, CEO of BT’s Consumer Division. “Today we are launching Draw the Line – a campaign on BT Sport which marks the start of a BT focus on tackling social media abuse”
“We’re working on building a better understanding of what we don’t see, by using technology to build a more accurate picture of the scale of the problem. Over the next few months, you will see our own social teams proactively respond, delete, block or report hate speech and the abuse we see on our channels.
“And this summer, BT and EE will make big investments in activity to raise awareness of the issue and give people the digital skills to protect themselves and support others on social media.”
“There can be no place for online hate in the connected, digitally-inclusive UK we want to help build. None at all,” he asserted.
“We’re excited to work alongside BT to lead the way in both raising awareness of online abuse as well as implement new and sustainable measures to ensure their channels are a safe space for everyone,” added Seyi Akiwowo, Founder & Executive Director of Glitch.
“It’s alarming how commonplace online abuse has become, especially when looking at statistics regarding women and marginalised communities. That’s why for the last four years we’ve recommended ways everyone including corporations can and must play their part in keeping the online space safe.”
“Our mental health, our wellbeing and the sports we love are being negatively impacted by online abuse. Online abuse has no place in our society and we all must take action. Until everyone, especially social media companies and the government commit to doing so this problem won’t go away.”
“We at Glitch develop and deliver various online safety workshops including how to be an online active bystander. In order to draw the line when it comes to abuse, we encourage you as digital citizens to spot, report and support,” she concluded.
BT worked in conjunction with Glitch to shape the Draw The Line campaign and AI Abuse Tracker utilising its expertise in creating safe online spaces and advocating for systematic change. BT worked with YouGov to conduct a survey of 4,000 people on social media abuse.