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The Social Media Protection Service will stop players seeing
abusive messages when they log on to their phones in dressing
rooms minutes after matches.
FIFA will monitor social media accounts of all participants at
the World Cup by scanning for public-facing abusive,
discriminatory and threatening comments and then reporting them
to social networks and law authorities.
"FIFA is committed to provide the best possible conditions for
players to perform to the best of their abilities," FIFA
President Gianni Infantino said.
"At the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 we are happy to launch a
service that will help to protect players from the damaging
effects that social media posts can cause to their mental health
and wellbeing."
Teams, players and other individual participants will also be
able to opt-in to a moderation service that will instantly hide
abusive and offensive comments on Facebook, Instagram and
YouTube, preventing them from being seen by the recipient and
their followers.
A report published by FIFA this year revealed that more than
half of players at last year's European Championship and Africa
Cup of Nations (AFCON) were subjected to discriminatory abuse
online.
Brazil international Willian, who is not in his country's World
Cup squad, is backing the campaign having experienced online
discrimination himself.
"I am supporting this campaign because I was in Brazil a year
ago, and I was suffering a lot, and my family were suffering a
lot because people started attacking us on social media,
attacking my family," Willian said.
"That's why I'm standing now with FIFA to see if you can stop
these kind of things that make me feel, sometimes, sad."
(Reporting by Peter Hall, editing by Ed Osmond)
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