Hate speech in sport proliferates on social media

Rosarita Cuccoli, PhD, Professor of Sport Sociology, University of Verona, Member of the scientific committee of Sport and Citizenship advising on the news media

01/12/2023

The number of messages containing hateful comments in connection with sport has risen sharply over the past three years, according to a study by the University of Turin. To counter this, digital media education programmes should be encouraged.

Social media provide additional opportunities for people to disseminate information and share their opinions. Unfortunately, we are also all aware of the alarming degrees of hate messages being spread via these platforms, many of which involving sports. Social media have become the new battleground for sports fans rooting for different factions. A new study from the University of Turin explored the evolution of hateful content on the official social media accounts of five leading Italian sports news outlets: La Gazzetta dello Sport, Il Corriere dello Sport, Tuttosport, Sky Sport, and Sport Mediaset. The study found that the number of posts on Facebook getting hate speech comments more than doubled from 2019 to 2022, rising from 13.4% to 29.1%. Hate speech also increased considerably on Twitter during that period, with hate speech replies rising from 31.0% in 2019 to 54.9% in 2022.

The study, titled «Barometro dell’odio nello sport – 2^a edizione» [Tr.: Barometer of hate in sports – 2^nd edition], looked at the presence of hate speech in over 3 million comments and replies to Facebook posts and tweets from October 1, 2022 to January 6, 2023.[1] The data were then compared to the inaugural survey in 2019. Facebook and Twitter (X) were chosen because interaction through comments is key on these two social media platforms, whereas interaction on other platforms primarily revolves around images (Instagram, Snapchat) or videos (YouTube, TikTok), explained the authors. The study was conducted by Antonella Seddone, Giuliano Bobba, Moreno Mancosu and Federico Vegetti at the Centre for Public Opinion & Digital Environment Research (CODER) of the University of Turin as part of a broader project called “Odiare non è uno sport” (Tr.: Hating is not a sport), supported by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation. The researchers worked on a sample of 12,329 posts on Facebook and 4,997 tweets on Twitter, and a total of 3,412,956 comments on Facebook and 29,625 replies on Twitter.

Verbal aggression and foul language

Intuitively, we all understand what hate speech is about: aggressiveness, hostility, a potential threat to social peace. Defining hate speech more specifically is not an easy task, though. For the purposes of the study, researchers identified four specific dimensions of hate speech:

1. Foul language (use of swear words and vulgar expressions)
2. Verbal aggressiveness (use of swear words and vulgar expressions aimed at offending another person verbally)
3. Physical aggressiveness (use of words to threaten another person physically)
4. Discrimination (use of words to offend another person’s alleged diversity based on characteristics like religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, gender …).

Verbal aggressiveness emerged on both Facebook (67.3%) and Twitter (58.1%) as the most recurrent hate speech dimension, followed by foul language (22.1% on Facebook; 36.0% on Twitter), discrimination (6.5% on Facebook; 3.8% on Twitter) and physical aggressiveness (4.1% on Facebook; 2.1% on Twitter). Foul language recorded the largest increase compared to 2019 on both Facebook (+8.1%) and Twitter (+5%).

A problem that affects all sports

It is impossible to study sport-related trends in Italy without paying special attention to football. A specific section of the report is indeed devoted to football, which was found in 96.1% of the Facebook posts and 95.2% of the tweets under examination. The largest share of posts and comments on both platforms were related to the leading football clubs – Juventus, Inter, Milan, Napoli, Roma. Hate speech could be found across comments related to all clubs and no major differences emerged in this respect between one club and another, said the researchers. The second and third spots in terms of coverage, after football, were occupied by Formula 1 and tennis. This applies to both Facebook and Twitter, although not in the same order. On Facebook, Formula 1 took the second spot (24.8%), followed by tennis at 19.9%. On Twitter, the two sports came out in reverse order, with tennis accounting for 29.2% of the coverage and Formula 1 at 18.4%. Quite surprisingly, despite the huge gap between football and any other sport in social media contents, the highest percentage of comments containing hate speech was not found in football. On Facebook, the largest number of hate speech comments was found in posts related to volleyball (12.7%), closely followed by football (12.4%), and then Formula 1 at the third spot (12.0%). On Twitter, the largest number of hate speech replies was related to basketball (30.8%), followed by football (20.4%) and volleyball (20.2%).

The study concludes with a set of recommendations to combat online hate speech in sports. Researchers identified five main areas for action:

1) awareness and education;

2) content moderation policies;

3) collaboration between social media companies and institutions;

4) data monitoring and analysis; and

5) positive participation and interaction.

The challenge of digital media education

The research produced by the University of Turin constitutes a comprehensive, precious tool that should be used in schools and elsewhere as part of digital literacy campaigns and initiatives. Unfortunately, media literacy programmes continue to be way too rare, and not only in Italy. Digital media education, today a key component in media literacy programmes, is not much about censoring content and banning accounts, although these measures often become necessary. When banning and censoring is required, the damage has already been done. Digital media education works upstream by providing the tools for thinking critically about how we access, consume and engage with digital media. Sport is a suitable space for learning because it evokes an emotional response.

Users may spend too much time in virtual environments, but educational settings do not sufficiently take into account what users experience online. Social media users of all ages should have a clear understanding of the difference between freedom of speech, which encourages debate, and hate speech, which purposely promotes conflict. The immense outreach of social media in today’s world is clearly not accompanied by adequate knowledge of their impact on individuals and society.

[1] This timeframe matches that of the previous survey in 2019, to allow for consistent comparison across years. The October-January timeframe is also ideal for the purposes of the study because the leading competitions of most sports are underway in Italy during that period of the year, explained the researchers.