Bukayo Saka: footballer targeted by racist abuse after Euro final

When Bukayo Saka, the English footballer, missed a penalty in the Euro 2020 final, he received a barrage of racist abuse on social media. At the time Saka called it “a sad reality” that tech platforms were not doing enough to stop these messages. Instagram said a mistake in its technology meant racist comments weren’t removed. This weekend, Saka played in the Euro 2024 final and has again faced racist abuse. Although the vast majority of comments were supportive, Tortoise found that at least 80 monkey gifs, along with other racist slurs, were posted on his Instagram profile after England’s defeat. Some remained online for over 24 hours, despite users tagging Instagram and asking the site to act. Tortoise also found racist abuse on the profiles of other Black players, including Jude Bellingham and Kyle Walker. Instagram said yesterday that it didn’t tolerate racist abuse and had removed the flagged content.

An Instagram representative said: “We know that our systems sometimes make mistakes, which is why we have teams working around the clock to monitor and take action against violating content.”

An English forklift driver was jailed after live streaming himself on Facebook racially abusing Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho after the Euro 2020 final.

Tortoise was unable to see whether the racist comments directed towards Saka after Sunday’s defeat came from the UK. Many of the accounts in question were anonymous or newly created. Some appeared to be based overseas, but one stated on its Instagram bio: “UK belongs to the white people”.

Meta’s guidelines state that it removes content that contains hate speech, which it defines as a “direct attack against people” on the basis of protected characteristics. Meta specifically prohibits the use of harmful stereotypes, what it describes as dehumanising comparisons used to attack or exclude specific groups.

Instagram, which generates tens of billions of dollars in revenue every year, uses a mix of technology and humans to moderate content. Instagram has previously been criticised for its failure to act on monkey emojis sent to Black sports stars on the site.

On the eve of Euro 2020, Gareth Southgate, who resigned as England manager yesterday morning, wrote an open letter in The Players’ Tribune. In the letter, he wrote about the risks players face online and included a question: “Why would you choose to insult somebody for something as ridiculous as the colour of their skin?”

Southgate has now resigned, but his question remains unanswered. So too does the question of why Meta – in the wake of a massive sports event starring a player with a history of facing racist abuse on its platforms – isn’t able to act more quickly.