Twitter have released a statement explaining how they intend to address the surge of racist abuse towards footballers in recent weeks on their platform.
Chelsea stars Tammy Abraham and Kurt Zouma have both been the subject of vile online abuse this season and it's an issue that has been particularly intense at the start of the 2019/20 season, with Manchester United stars Paul Pogba and Marcus Rashford also receiving racism on Twitter in the past month.
There has been an outcry from footballers, the media and supporters for Twitter and other social media companies to do more to safeguard its consumers against racist abuse.
After a meeting with the most senior anti-racism Football Governing Bodies, the social media platform has today released a statement on how it plans to combat the recent problems.
Posting on Twitter, they wrote: "We are sharing a brief update on the work we are doing to address incidences of abusive and racist behaviour towards UK footballers on the service in recent weeks.
"In the past two weeks, we have taken action on more than 700 examples of abuse and hateful conduct related to UK football. This vile content has no place on our service. We will continue to take swift action on the minority that try to undermine the conversation for the majority.
"In that same time, we have met with the @PFA, @kickitout and directly affected football clubs, and agreed a number of proactive measures to tackle this issue collectively.
"Working with the @PFA, we will participate in their player training programme and will be joining a series of educational sessions with its membership to support the PFA’s ambition to tackle the issue.
"Working with @kickitout, we will continue our working relationship with UK policing to further brief them and provide training on our policies, procedures and dedicated 24/7 reporting channels for law enforcement.
"To be clear; this behaviour does not reflect the vast majority of fans who use Twitter to participate in vibrant conversations around football in the UK. We have spent years forging strong partnerships with clubs, organisations and supporters and deeply value the relationships.
"We want to play our part in curbing this unacceptable behaviour — both online and offline — and will continue engaging with partners and clubs, protecting the conversation from abuse, and taking rapid action on accounts that break our rules."
