TWITTER has banned an account which sent racist abuse to Arsenal forward Eddie Nketiah.
The Gunners striker, 21, was racially abused on social media after posting a picture of himself at training.
Eddie Nketiah was racially abused on Twitter this weekCredit: PA
A response to Nketiah’s photo captioned ‘working with a smile’ told him to leave the club along with a racist message.
And a spokesperson for Twitter told Sky Sports News: “Racist behaviour has no place on our service and when we identify accounts that violate any of the Twitter Rules, we take enforcement action.
“The account referenced has been permanently suspended.”
Top pros have demanded action from social media giants after vile abuse from trolls.
Manchester United’s Axel Tuanzebe and Anthony Martial are among those to have suffered racist hate.
Chelsea’s Antonio Rudiger also revealed he was targeted with racist abuse.
Managers Mikel Arteta and Steve Bruce along with referee Mike Dean have all received death threats on social media.
Arsenal chief Vinai Venkatesham called on social media giants and authorities to ‘wake up’ to the sick taunts.
Eddie Nketiah posted a picture from the training ground, and received a racist response in replyCredit: Getty Images – Getty
Speaking at the Financial Times Business of Football summit on Thursday, he said: “”You really can’t underestimate the impact abuse has on individuals. We have to take this opportunity as a wake-up call. Increasingly this type of abuse towards black players is becoming normalised. I think this a moment in time.
“There is psychological support to our players. Pro-actively track abuse players get. We support our players around when they want to take action and report it to the police. We do a lot. We can’t do this alone. How do you explain to a black footballer that pirated content is taken down in minutes, but not racist abuse?”
Facebook announced new measures last week for their Instagram platform in tackling online abuse.
The company have vowed to be quicker banning those behind the racist messages and promised to work with police as much as possible to prosecute the abusers.
Instagram said in a statement: “We want Instagram to be a place for people to connect with the people and things they love. But we also know that, just like in the offline world, there will always be those who abuse others.
“We’ve seen it most recently with racist online abuse targeted at footballers in the UK. We don’t want this behaviour on Instagram.
“Today we’re announcing some new measures, including removing the accounts of people who send abusive messages, and developing new controls to help reduce the abuse people see in their DMs.
“Now, if someone continues to send violating messages, we’ll disable their account.
“We’ll also disable new accounts created to get around our messaging restrictions, and will continue to disable accounts we find that are created purely to send abusive messages.”
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Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
