Marvin Bartley: Livingston captain urges social media companies to tackle online abuse
- Published
The anti-racism act of taking a knee has failed to have a meaningful impact, according to Dundee United manager Micky Mellon
Social media companies are condoning online abuse by "sitting on their hands" instead of implementing tighter controls, says Livingston captain Marvin Bartley.
Bartley supports the football and rugby boycott of social media this weekend, and revealed he has been racially abused in the past week on Instagram.
The midfielder feels lockdown has led to a rise in online hatred.
"We're almost at desperation point now," said Bartley.
"Everybody can see it needs to change. The only people that could change it overnight are the social media companies but they seem to be sitting on their hands.
"Obviously they're not oblivious to what's going on. They are sitting in their offices and saying it's OK. They're not doing anything about it.
"The government aren't totally out of this either - they can do something. We saw when the Super League was coming about, they were having emergency meetings and going to bring in certain laws. Where are they now?"
Bartley says racist comments targeting him on a Livingston post were reported to Instagram, who responded that the abuse "didn't violate their code of conduct".
He added: "That lets you know where we're at with it. It was quite powerful stuff the person had written. How Instagram can say that these things are OK, what chance have we got?"
As a means to bring accountability, the 34-year-old suggests a system where social media users must be 'verified' through their passport or bank account.
"Give me the option to say that if you're not verified, and Instagram or Twitter don't know who you are, I don't want you commenting on my posts," he said.
"They need to hold people accountable for what they're writing."
Meanwhile, Dundee United manager Micky Mellon says the temporary boycott of social media will be meaningless unless it leads to change.
Scottish clubs have taken a knee before the majority of games this season in an anti-racism message, but Mellon feels the impact of that has been lost. United have chosen to stand instead before recent matches.
"If it is just a boycott for a few days and nothing happens, then it is just like taking the knee," he said.
"We need to educate and make people aware of why we are doing this and what the consequences of it are. I am all for it, but as long as something happens from it now."
The UK government has previously threatened social media companies with "large fines" which could amount to "billions of pounds" if they fail to tackle abuse on their platforms.
Facebook said in February that tougher measures would be taken to tackle the issue.
Last week, Instagram - which is owned by Facebook - announced a tool to enable users to automatically filter out abusive messages from those they do not follow on the platform.