Social Media Boycott Active For English Football This Weekend

Recently there has been an uptick in abuse on social media. Whether it has been unprecedented hatred being shown towards minorities or violent threats made towards fellow human beings, this vile and unacceptable behaviour is not acceptable and it is time we all take a strong stance towards it.

In particular, the footballing community has been plagued by invective being hurled at players. In this era of unprecedented access to footballers thanks to social media, the level of disrespect towards players has been ratcheted up a few notches to the point where this has become more than just a few sporadic actions that can be attributed to a few miscreants.

Enough is enough. Action needs to be taken. By social media companies and by our legislators to enact stronger laws. And also by us, as football fans and fellow humans. Just like we rallied recently to speak out when it looked like our game was being stolen by a greedy few, we need to speak out again to stamp out insulting behaviour.

Everton are joining with up with all English football clubs this weekend for a social media boycott to address this.

Premier League

The FA, Premier League, EFL, FA Women’s Super League, FA Women’s Championship, PFA, LMA, PGMOL, Kick It Out, Women In Football and the FSA will unite for a social media boycott from the afternoon of Friday 30th April until the night of Monday 3rd May in response to the ongoing and sustained discriminatory abuse received online by players and many others connected to football.

This has been scheduled to take place across a full fixture schedule in the men’s and women’s professional game and will see clubs across the Premier League, EFL, WSL and Women’s Championship switch off their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.

In solidarity with the cause, the following SB Nation Soccer Premier League blogs will also be honoring a similar period of silence on their social media accounts –

Arsenal – The Short Fuse
Aston Villa – 7500 to Holte
Everton – Royal Blue Mersey
Leicester City – Fosse Posse
Liverpool – The Liverpool Offside
Manchester United – The Busby Babe
Newcastle – Coming Home Newcastle
Tottenham – Cartilage Free Captain

This boycott alone will not stop the stream of hateful commentary that pervades through social media nowadays, but is more of a call to action for all of us as football fans to stand together and stamp this out of the game. We encourage each one of you to take a minute to think about what you, personally, can do to make the game we all love a kinder, more inclusive space and to help drive racism and abuse off social media.

We thank you for your support.

As a football blog and a social media presence, we acknowledge that we too have a part to play here, whether by goading on heated conversations or publishing inflammatory opinions. To that end this is a pledge that we here on RBM can and will speak up against and not be a part of any discrimination.

Thank you.

- Calvin and the RBM team

This social media boycott only covers the Royal Blue Mersey Twitter account, we will continue our regular coverage of all Everton football on this site as normal throughout this period.