Current England international and Juventus forward Eniola Aluko, has called for social media outlets to take more action over the often unwarranted abuse recognisable people receive on their platforms. This follows the disturbing emergence of abuse comments made to Chelsea Women's captain Karen Carney in the aftermath of her side's UWCL fixture earlier this month.
According to professional footballer Eniola Aluko, of Juventus in the Women's Serie A, social media companies need to be taking more action against online trolls, who abuse well known faces regularly online, often without provocation or cause.
Chelsea Women's captain Karen Carney was subject to horrific abuse online, after posting an encouraging message to her side's fans in the wake of their Women's Champions League victory over Fiorentina.
Trolls left sickening comments below the video posted on social media, which wished things such as cancer and rape upon the Chelsea striker. And now Carney's former teammate Aluko has urged social media companies to do more to prevent such things occurring on their sites.
In her column for 'The Guardian' Aluko wrote: 'I was really disappointed to see the abuse directed at Karen Carney last week but I can’t say I was completely surprised. Unfortunately, it’s nothing new-the sad reality is if you’re on social media and are a recognisable individual you are potentially exposed to such abuse.'
Aluko has herself on the odd occasion received such abuse, especially in the aftermath of her various her appearance as a TV pundit for both 'ITV' and 'BBC' on the men's World Cup finals this past summer.
The striker highlighted the problems with the continuing online abuse suffered by high profile figures today, writing: 'The huge problem for me is that there aren’t enough consequences for people who do this sort of thing – if they knew that writing that kind of sentence could potentially get them a jail sentence or a ban from Twitter, they wouldn’t do it.'
She continued:' Instagram, Twitter and Facebook need to get real about the consequences and deterrents for users...They need to step up and take some action. Let’s be honest – they know who these people are. Yes, they might change accounts, but if somebody wrote: “I have a bomb and I’m going to plant it somewhere and kill 50 people,” Twitter and the police would be absolutely sure to find that person.'
Aluko concluded by praising the football community's response to the abuse suffered by Carney this month, in particular the response from England Women's boss Phil Neville, who spoke out passionately in defence of his player.
However Aluko was also keen to highlight that players should take a step back from such platforms if they continue to face abuse, writing: ' I know Karen Bardsley deleted her account for the last World Cup, in 2015. I think it’s a directive that should come from the coach as part of the team culture during major tournaments rather than a choice for players.'