Anthony Elanga targeted with racist abuse

If you're going to abuse someone, racism is the best choice (if eligible).

It's not that I'm in favour of it, but people seem to have a hard time grasping this. Why would you soften your punches?

If you're going to target something then pick abuse altogether, not racism specifically. As long as you have the former, you'll always find the latter.
 
Red Dreams said:
Things have got so much worse these days.

Wonderful Tory Britain.
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Some people just can't help themselves can they? Always with the politics.. I come here to discuss football and United.

Don't polute the forum with your politics.
 
Bennie Blanco said:
Some people just can't help themselves can they? Always with the politics.. I come here to discuss football and United.

Don't polute the forum with your politics.
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You're deluding yourself if you think politics hasn't influenced the rise in racial abuse in recent years
 
Red Dreams said:
you live in a world where Politics does not touch you eh?

I suppose they take the knee before the match for fun.
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Your assumption is wrong. This is the United forum where we're supposed to discuss and celebrate football and United. If you want to share your disgust of a political party I suggest you do it somewhere else.

Taking the knee is where footballers show solidarity in their stance against racism. Or are you saying racism doesn't exist in the left-leaning parties and voters?

You can have the last word I'm not going to reply.
 
Bennie Blanco said:
Your assumption is wrong. This is the United forum where we're supposed to discuss and celebrate football and United. If you want to share your disgust of a political party I suggest you do it somewhere else.

Taking the knee is where footballers show solidarity in their stance against racism. Or are you saying racism doesn't exist in the left-leaning parties and voters?

You can have the last word I'm not going to reply.
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As someone that grew up in Manchester and whos entire family is from the area I think you're not understanding the political leanings of the average United fan. It's a working class city, Sir Alex is a massive socilaist, Gary Neville just joined the Labour party. Don't act offended if you see United fans posting comments against far-right bullshit, you're choosing to interact with fans that are likely to not support it, that are from areas that likely don't vote for it
 
Bennie Blanco said:
Your assumption is wrong. This is the United forum where we're supposed to discuss and celebrate football and United. If you want to share your disgust of a political party I suggest you do it somewhere else.

Taking the knee is where footballers show solidarity in their stance against racism. Or are you saying racism doesn't exist in the left-leaning parties and voters?

You can have the last word I'm not going to reply.
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We're talking about racism in this thread though, and racism is a societal thing, influenced by political developments. You can't expect (and have no specific right to as a non-modmin) people to speak about these acts of racism very narrowly, without at all considering the wider context in which racism is taking place. Otherwise I hope you will also tell people to stop talking about the responsibilities of Twitter, Facebook, etc. to do something about this racism - cause that's clearly not directly football-related either.
 
RedChisel said:
Thicky Tory England strikes again! Such a nasty and shit place to live.
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Many of the accounts abusing him, just like what happened with Saka and Rashford in Instagram spamming the monkey emote after the penalty miss at the Euro, were from Asia and the Middle East.

There's nothing you can do about it, or they will call your racist for scrutinizing a brown/yellow man for being racist.

I feel bad for black people who gets racially abused by an asian or a brown man, as nothing will happen.It will get overlooked.
 
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This shouldn't be thread-worthy anymore. Just make "racism in football" megathread and be done with it.
 
Bennie Blanco said:
Your assumption is wrong. This is the United forum where we're supposed to discuss and celebrate football and United. If you want to share your disgust of a political party I suggest you do it somewhere else.

Taking the knee is where footballers show solidarity in their stance against racism. Or are you saying racism doesn't exist in the left-leaning parties and voters?

You can have the last word I'm not going to reply.
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Yes let's make note of racism in football but make no effort to understand / discuss how and where it originates. Because that would be uncomfortable.
 
Cheimoon said:
We're talking about racism in this thread though, and racism is a societal thing, influenced by political developments. You can't expect (and have no specific right to as a non-modmin) people to speak about these acts of racism very narrowly, without at all considering the wider context in which racism is taking place. Otherwise I hope you will also tell people to stop talking about the responsibilities of Twitter, Facebook, etc. to do something about this racism - cause that's clearly not directly football-related either.
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What about the middle east and Asia then? the racist comments against black players came from there as well.

What wide context are we missing in that case?

What a actions should be taken for black players to not get racially abused online by people from India,Malaysia,Indonesia, Morocco,Algeria,etc?
 
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There's prisons full of not rights who've have done all kinds of deplorable things. So in a country of 68 Million why wouldn't there be a few not rights on social media either?

Why is anyone suprised, shouldn't we just stop giving air time to these freaks, they're an absolute minority and don't warrant the attention.
 
Wolf1992 said:
What about the middle east and Asia then? the racist comments against black players came from there as well.

What wide context are we missing in that case?

What a actions should be taken for black players to not get racially abused online by people from India,Malaysia,Indonesia, Morocco,Algeria,etc?
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I'm not sure how that responds to my post. I'm saying racism has a societal context from which you can't divorce it. I didn't say that context can only be the UK, or any other specific area.
 
These people should be named shamed and banned. Track the IP address where the account was created if its a dummy one. These social media giants need to do way more to protect people.
 
Superden said:
Yes let's make note of racism in football but make no effort to understand / discuss how and where it originates. Because that would be uncomfortable.
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The conservative party is to blame, we've already established that... Makes the national front look like Teletubbies in comparison.
 
MacarisSocks said:
There's prisons full of not rights who've have done all kinds of deplorable things. So in a country of 68 Million why wouldn't there be a few not rights on social media either?

Why is anyone suprised, shouldn't we just stop giving air time to these freaks, they're an absolute minority and don't warrant the attention.
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Are they in the minority? Not a day goes by without hearing about another incident of racism, hate speech, bullying, or other unsavoury behaviour on social media. From people having to close their account, all the way to people comiting suicide as a result of severe bullying and harassment, social media is constantly in the news for the wrong reasons.

The world has understandly been focused on the covid pandemic, but surely the damage social media enables people to inflict on others should be taken more seriously than it is. At the very least let's introduce a mandatory proof of identity check before allowing people to use it.
 
Jippy said:
Seems a bit of a stretch to imagine a state is paying people to racially abuse footballers in the UK. Same with the media, given the grim predictability means the story has less impact.

It's just cowardly racist pricks who get off on the attention. FB or twitter should release their IP addresses.
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That's one of the most ludicrous things I've read what's next start lynching them in the open? No matter how repulsive you find the shit they spout , to suggest to do such a thing is outright fascistic and a serious trampling of freedom of speech and a very very dangerous precedent to set.

Anyway what happened to the lad is to be expected to as there there always wanders ready bring out their keyboards and hurl out abuse, feck them for giving such a sweet young kit so much hurt. The lad seems to have the right mentality so hopefully he has moved on from this mess and that unfortunate night by the time the burnley game comes up.
 
AndySmith1990 said:
Are they in the minority?
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Given that only 28% of the UK population are on Twitter it is a minority simply by that measure. There were about 2000 racist tweets after the Euros which was the worst of all racist abuse against sports stars we've seen. Twitter said they came from all around the world but the largest country of origin was the UK. Lets say that 50% came from the UK (it was probably less looking at the police figures on the same event) that would mean that 0.005% of the UK twitter population (which is 28% of the UK population) were responsible for those tweets. Twitter reported at the same time that they'd removed 13000 racist tweets with their new controls in the 6 months leading up to summer 2021. Even if you use 50% of these tweets being UK based (it will be far less) then it would amount to 0.03% of the UK Twitter population (which is 28% of the UK population) being responsible for those Tweets. Obviously this does not excuse the racism but it is a tiny minority of the UK population making these tweets.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
Obviously this does not excuse the racism but it is a tiny minority of the UK population making these tweets.
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The ‘but’ in the last sentence is excusing the racism. Same thing happens every time [as it’s becoming a serial issue with Uniteds black players], you just spent an awful long paragraph to get to ‘yea it’s racists but it’s only a few people’ as if there’s some barometer. Not all racists will be on twitter btw so instead of skewing statistics to minimise the action let’s call it for what it is.

Manchester United’s fanbase have an issue with race, I can’t tell you to what degree as none of us can but what we do know is that when a black Manchester United players performs badly they tend to get racially abused.

I’m not sure why 28% of the UK being on twitter makes that any less of an issue. Of the 28% who are ‘football fans’? Of the football fans, who are ‘Manchester United fans’? We don’t really know this. I’m struggling to see why the percentage seems to occupy peoples minds more so than the racism itself. Also, this club prides itself on its global appeal so trying to further minimise the issue with ‘Lets say that 50% came from the UK (it was probably less looking at the police figures on the same event)’ is just as egregious.

As a victim of racism I can tell you it doesn’t matter if it comes from Leeds or Bordeaux, posts like yours attempt to reason an unreasonable action.
 
Red Dreams said:
Things have got so much worse these days.

Wonderful Tory Britain.
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Worse than when? People used to throw bananas at black players in the 70’s and 80’s and making monkey noises at them was very common.
We’ve actually come a long way from that.
It‘s now up to social media to remove the veil of anonymity to the turds who hide behind it online. I know it’ll trigger a lot of people who wish to post online but keep their privacy and it’ll be compared to being in a dictatorship etc, but it just needs to happen. Or they need to moderate the shite out of their content.
 
Red_toad said:
Worse than when? People used to throw bananas at black players in the 70’s and 80’s and making monkey noises at them was very common.
We’ve actually come a long way from that.
It‘s now up to social media to remove the veil of anonymity to the turds who hide behind it online. I know it’ll trigger a lot of people who wish to post online but keep their privacy and it’ll be compared to being in a dictatorship etc, but it just needs to happen. Or they need to moderate the shite out of their content.
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The last time i heard racist chants at OT was around the late 70s possibly even early 80s. i stood in the Stretford End then and United road all through the 80s, then was in K stand in the 90s which was lively. I can't vouch for every single fan and I've heard plenty of edgy stuff but not really racism. Like most folks have many good friends of different ethnicities and would happily grip any racist idiots. Have to agree with Red Toad, the problem surely is more online keyboard freaks empowered by their anonymity not proper fans.
 
Red the Bear said:
That's one of the most ludicrous things I've read what's next start lynching them in the open? No matter how repulsive you find the shit they spout , to suggest to do such a thing is outright fascistic and a serious trampling of freedom of speech and a very very dangerous precedent to set.

Anyway what happened to the lad is to be expected to as there there always wanders ready bring out their keyboards and hurl out abuse, feck them for giving such a sweet young kit so much hurt. The lad seems to have the right mentality so hopefully he has moved on from this mess and that unfortunate night by the time the burnley game comes up.
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:lol:I mean to the police if it's requested, not broadcast it on national TV or beam it onto the Shard.
 
i'd suspect 90% of it is rival fans making burner accounts pretending to be United's.

No doubt most of them are probably u-18 and think it's funny to be racist. I don't think it helps that everytime it happened it got announced on social media platforms, it just eggs them on to do it more.
 
I said to my mate just after the miss that Elanga would get battered by the moronic hoards on ‘social media’ which is anything but social. It is also disturbing to read comments on here about Tory Britain as if they are the cause of this behaviour. Nothing to do with politics. Anyhow, I would suggest that the muppets that posted were educated or rather went to school during the Labour governments from 97-2008 and ended up like Angela Rayner. Taking the knee is a political gesture and is a meaningless gesture now. Zaha doesn’t take the knee anymore. What do you think would have happened if say McT missed a vital pen? Nothing on social media? Of course not. They should be ignored and not given the fuel of publicity.
 
Jippy said:
:lol:I mean to the police if it's requested, not broadcast it on national TV or beam it onto the Shard.
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That's more moderate but even then it's very dangerous, who gets to set what's acceptable and what's crossing the line . Look at some of the more authoritarian countries out there like iran , Russia, China etc etc and all of them push for social media control and real life identity checks and look what that has done for their freedom of speech.

Anyway this isn't the right thread to discuss this so I'll end it here but unfortunately enough I imagine that we can't do much more than trying to educate people against this sort of thing as abuse and specifically racial abuse is just a byproduct of the social media age and im afraid its here to stay.
 
It's been proposed before to implement a model where users can only interact with certain other users/accounts if they have been verified by means of some form of identification (like a work related e-mail address).

In other words, if you want to spout random shit in a random fashion and interact with other random users, you're free to do so - but if you want to interact with, say, Marcus Rashford (or whoever manages his account), you need to do so from a verified account.

Are there any valid arguments (in terms of legality, possible precedents being set that could be problematic, etc.) against this?

(To be clear, I'm obviously talking about social media - Twitter, Instagram, etc.).
 
Ixion said:
As someone that grew up in Manchester and whos entire family is from the area I think you're not understanding the political leanings of the average United fan. It's a working class city, Sir Alex is a massive socilaist, Gary Neville just joined the Labour party. Don't act offended if you see United fans posting comments against far-right bullshit, you're choosing to interact with fans that are likely to not support it, that are from areas that likely don't vote for it
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Racism is not far right or far left
 
Dargonk said:
Care to explain
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Sure, saying…

Dargonk said:
I can at least understand abusing someone for not trying, but a one off mistake?
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Is an unbelievably shit-take, even for this thread. Making out that abusing him under a more ‘worthy’ circumstance is ‘ok’ is disgraceful, and coming from a scout is very worrying - as are many of the posts in this thread.

We’re talking about using hate speech directly toward other human beings and there are multiple morons spouting ‘just ignore it’, ‘it’s probably mainly other brown people’, ‘it’s only a minority’ and other garbage that trivialises a massive issue - and something that’s clearly a massive issue to the players.

This repulsive ‘ignore it’ or ‘explain it away’ attitude is what let people get away with disgusting abuse in the stands for decades, and just like then, it needs to be weeded out.

It’s worth remembering in threads dealing with issues such as these that racists can’t speak freely on Redcafe, so you’re left with 2 possibilities…

1. They see threads like this and simply stay away, knowing that they can’t freely express their true opinions.

2. They post in such threads and covertly put across their views in a way that they know they can get away with (for now).

Food for thought.
 
Red the Bear said:
That's more moderate but even then it's very dangerous, who gets to set what's acceptable and what's crossing the line . Look at some of the more authoritarian countries out there like iran , Russia, China etc etc and all of them push for social media control and real life identity checks and look what that has done for their freedom of speech.

Anyway this isn't the right thread to discuss this so I'll end it here but unfortunately enough I imagine that we can't do much more than trying to educate people against this sort of thing as abuse and specifically racial abuse is just a byproduct of the social media age and im afraid its here to stay.
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I don't think people should be able to subject people to racist abuse or troll the families of tragedies freely behind the cloak of anonymity. If you yelled the n-word at Elanga in the story you'd get done for it, so why should it be fine to tweet that to him.
It's then for the CPS, courts or whatever to draw the lines. I don't think that's akin to China or Iran's control of social media in any reasonable interpretation.
 
AFC NimbleThumb said:
As a victim of racism I can tell you it doesn’t matter if it comes from Leeds or Bordeaux, posts like yours attempt to reason an unreasonable action.
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I'm sorry to hear that you've been a victim of racism but the part in bold is uncalled for.

I understand where you're coming from - saying "it's just a minority" can be used as a pure cop-out.

It's not my impression that this was the case here, though. The poster you quoted was replying to a specific question.
 
Red the Bear said:
That's more moderate but even then it's very dangerous, who gets to set what's acceptable and what's crossing the line . Look at some of the more authoritarian countries out there like iran , Russia, China etc etc and all of them push for social media control and real life identity checks and look what that has done for their freedom of speech.

Anyway this isn't the right thread to discuss this so I'll end it here but unfortunately enough I imagine that we can't do much more than trying to educate people against this sort of thing as abuse and specifically racial abuse is just a byproduct of the social media age and im afraid its here to stay.
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Your stance doesn't make any sense. Asking to link social media profiles to a person isn't in any sense a curtailment of free speech. Reporting social media posts to the police is no different to any other reporting of abuse in a non digital form.

There's a huge difference between controlling access and publication of information to making it possible to punish those committing a crime.

They should be handled as if they'd abused Elanga from the stands.
 
Jippy said:
I don't think that's akin to China or Iran's control of social media in any reasonable interpretation.
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It obviously isn't.

You can - clearly - make a case for online anonymity in some cases: ideally, a person from North Korea should be able to sign up to Twitter using a bogus e-mail address, mask their IP and do whatever else is necessary to remain anonymous - and then post freely about their situation.

In that case, online anonymity is a great thing.

But why someone posting from an IP in - say - the United Kingdom should not be required to sign up using a work related e-mail address (which can be traced to a certain individual if needed) before they can post racist abuse directly to a football player...is beyond me.
 
Chesterlestreet said:
It obviously isn't.

You can - clearly - make a case for online anonymity in some cases: ideally, a person from North Korea should be able to sign up to Twitter using a bogus e-mail address, mask their IP and do whatever else is necessary to remain anonymous - and then post freely about their situation.

In that case, online anonymity is a great thing.

But why someone posting from an IP in - say - the United Kingdom should not be required to sign up using a work related e-mail address (which can be traced to a certain individual if needed) before they can post racist abuse directly to a football player...is beyond me.
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Yeah from whistleblowers to people getting counselling, anonymity can obviously be great. I use a vpn for certain things, even daft ones like watching the Aussie Open for free last week

But if you're racially abusing people or making rape threats to women MPs or whatever, the right to privacy should be lost.
 
Jippy said:
I use a vpn for certain things, even daft ones like watching the Aussie Open for free last week
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So do I...er...but I honestly don't use it to post racist abuse!

Seriously, though - rules whereby, in specific cases (interacting with certain social media accounts, posting comments on official media sites, etc.) you can't post from a user account that has not been verified according to a certain standard - shouldn't be that hard to implement.

If you don't want your comment on the Daily Mail website - or your comment on a footballer's official Twitter - to be traced back to you, then you shouldn't be making that comment in the first place. Freedom of speech has never been about enabling people to threaten or abuse others.
 
MackRobinson said:
Racism is not far right or far left
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There is not a single thing I said in that post about racism thanks. I was referring to far right as that particular poster repeatedly called out people for posting "lefty" views and I was highlighting that is naturally the most common type of views you would find on a United forum.
 
I'm sure that 98% of these abusers are not even Man Utd supporters, mostly fan accounts that do it for the likes/heat/drama. Just ban their accounts and move on.
 
There is nothing that can be done. People are scums and internet is almost anonymous, unless someone is ready to spend time and money on tracking each person down. It is just not feasible to track down so many people who can just ditch one account and create another in minutes.
The only other solution is that the social media accounts be forced by law to have accounts associated with personal IDs, which poses a huuuuge privacy risk. And also many individuals will decide not to be on social media, rather than give out ID proofs to money minded corporates.
 
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