The impact of online abuse on professional sports is to be examined this Thursday in a webinar hosted by Stats Perform.
In August 2021, the company partnered with data-ethics brand Signify to launch an AI and data learning project with the aim of detecting and monitoring online abuse aimed at athletes, organisations, sporting bodies and more.
CEO Carl Mergele branded the partnership as a headline project for Stats Perform, and stated: “Sports integrity needs to be expanded to include online abuse, given its impact on competing athletes and organisations.”
The webinar, hosted by Stats Perform Senior Integrity Manager Nick Iliffe and Signify CEO Jonathan Hirshler, promises to examine the current status of social media abuse in sports and why stakeholders have had difficulties in tackling the matter.
The partners will also explain why the new deal has focused on leveraging AI and Machine Learning to monitor, identify, and unmask abuse in real-time.
Stats Perform continues its bid to reduce online harm by calling on organisations representing fans, players, teams, leagues and governments in order to recognise and take action against abuse as a threat to sports enjoyment and wider integrity.
As part of the original partnership, Stats Perform worked to enhance Signify’s Threat Matrix system – used to detect online abuse on a real-time scale – by leveraging its AI sports innovation and intelligence capabilities.
These actions followed a social media boycott in protest against online racism and abuse ,which saw a number of prominent sports organisations such as UEFA the FA and the Premier League participate
