FIFA has revealed that its digital monitoring systems identified 89,000 abusive social media posts during the group stage of the FIFA World Cup, marking a 13-fold increase compared to the 2022 tournament in Qatar.
According to world football’s governing body, its Social Media Protection Service (SMPS) scanned more than six million posts and comments, with harmful content increasing by 33 percent compared to the previous World Cup.
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FIFA said racist abuse accounted for 11 percent of all offensive posts detected, representing a three percent increase from the group stage of the 2022 World Cup.
Social Media Protection Service
The SMPS is available to all participating teams, players, coaches, and match officials at FIFA tournaments to help protect them from discriminatory and abusive content online.
The system combines artificial intelligence with human moderation to identify, filter, and block racist, discriminatory, and threatening messages while also shielding players’ followers from harmful comments.
Thousands of Accounts Investigated
FIFA said around 225,000 posts were flagged for manual review, with moderators confirming 89,000 as abusive. Nearly 1,000 social media accounts have been referred for further investigation.
The governing body noted that the expansion of the tournament from 32 to 48 teams also contributed to the higher volume of online content monitored.
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In addition, automated moderation tools hid nearly 181,000 hateful comments from official team accounts, while more than two million comments, including spam and content from bots or fake accounts, were moderated during the group stage.
FIFA added that it shares evidence with law enforcement agencies when abusive content exceeds legal thresholds. More than 100 cases have already been identified for further action.
Among recent incidents, Dutch players Justin Kluivert, Quinten Timber, and Crysencio Summerville were subjected to racist abuse online after missing penalties in the Netherlands’ Round of 32 defeat to Morocco.
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