World Athletics announced on Wednesday that it will provide 25 athletes with year-round AI protection on their social media accounts, after they were targeted by cyberbullies during recent major events.
AI Is Providing Protection To 25 World Athletics
The governing body shared the results of a four-year report on online abuse in athletics, conducted with the Signify Group’s Threat Matrix service. The study tracked online activity during the 2021 and 2024 Olympics, as well as the 2022 and 2023 World Athletics Championships.
Although World Athletics didn’t specify how the AI protection would work, such technology is typically used to detect security risks and block inappropriate content on social media.
The study found two serious cases of online abuse that were reported to the police.
Out of more than 350,000 posts analyzed during the Paris 2024 Olympics on X, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, 809 were confirmed as abusive. Of those, 18% were racist, 13% were sexual, and 17% were sexist. Two athletes received 82% of all the abuse.
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“Athlete welfare is at the very top of our priority list, and we will continue to put measures in place to ensure that athletes can confidently and safely engage with social media platforms,” World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said.
Three of the top five most abused athletes from the 2023 World Championships in Budapest were also among the top five most targeted at the Paris Olympics.
Around 240,000 posts were analyzed from the Tokyo 2020 Olympics (held in 2021 due to COVID), with 132 confirmed as abusive. 63% of the abuse was directed at two female athletes.
In the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, 35% of the abuse was racist, marking a 12-fold increase from the previous year’s World Championships in Eugene.
World Athletics stated that this was the first time an international federation had carried out such a detailed analysis.
“Many athletes don’t know how to react (to) abusive comments online, or measures to protect themselves,” said Valerie Adams, Chair of the World Athletics Athletes’ Commission.
“The more we continue to educate athletes on safeguarding measures, the more athletes will feel comfortable flying the flag for their countries and their sport – on the field of play, and online.”
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