Tennis principals exposed Thursday that “angry gamblers” represented virtually half of violent social media sites messages targeting leading tennis celebrities.
The AI-led Threat Matrix, released by the ITF, WTA, Wimbledon and the United States Open, evaluated virtually 2.5 million messages on X, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok in between January and October this year.
From that number, “around 12,000” violent messages were determined.
The 4 controling bodies claimed that “angry gamblers”, that bank on suits and vent their stress on social media networks when their wagers fall short, stood for 48% of violent messages found in 2024.
“An increased volume of abusive content was observed during the Grand Slam tournaments”, which enable their writers to take pleasure in higher “visibility” provided “the interest” stimulated by tennis throughout these two-week lengthy occasions.
“The identities of 15 highly abusive account authors have been passed to national law enforcement for action,” claimed the record.
“Abusers should be under no illusion – we will pursue criminal prosecution where we can, seek to exclude them from access to major social media platforms and ban them from attending our events.”
Former females’s globe leading and two-time Grand Slam title victor Victoria Azarenka claimed she invited efforts to “create a healthier online environment”.
“Social media has become an integral part of our daily lives, and with that, it was essential for the WTA and these partner organisations to take meaningful steps toward filtering, blocking, and reporting hateful and harmful comments,” she claimed.
“No one should have to endure the hate that so many of us have faced through these platforms.”
The numbers launched on Thursday might have produced much more gloomy analysis with the ATP, Australian Open and French Open not having actually joined the Threat Matrix campaign.
In overall, 7,739 gamers on the ITF circuit, the 2nd rate of globe tennis, and 563 objecting to WTA competitions are covered by the discovery device, which according to its initiators combines “artificial intelligence and human expertise” and runs in “39 languages”.
All gamers contending generally draw and certifying rounds for Wimbledon and the United States Open in 2024 were likewise covered, as were chair umpires at those occasions.
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