Stan Collymore accuses Twitter of inaction over racist abuse
Stan Collymore
Former Liverpool striker Stan Collymore has accused Twitter of “not doing enough” to combat racism on the social network platform after he received a series of abusive tweets.
Police have confirmed that they are investigating a series of racially offensive messages directed at the former England striker which were sent to him after he posted a tweet suggesting that Luis Suarez dived to win a penalty in the Premier League match against Aston Villa on Saturday.
Collymore wrote: “In the last 24 hours I’ve been threatened with murder several times, demeaned on my race, and many of these accounts are still active. Why? I accuse Twitter directly of not doing enough to combat racist/homophobic /sexist hate messages, all of which are illegal in the UK.”
Speaking to Radio4, Collymore suggested that the micro-blogging site was solely interested in making money and had ignored its social responsibilities.
He said: “I just wonder whether a couple of months after a stock market flotation on the New York Stock Exchange that monetises the amount of users, that this is Twitter looking at the number of pounds or dollars rather than its social responsibility.”
He added: “There have been people that I know who have reported individual accounts and have reported to the Met police and various police stations around the country and racist abuse has stayed on people’s timelines for months.
“We’re not talking days, we’re talking months.”
Collymore, who now works as a television pundit, rubbished claims that it was a freedom of speech issue.
He said: “You would be surprised at how many people, and I think particularly people that watch too many American soap operas, claim it’s a freedom of speech issue.
“Well yes, in theory you should be able to say exactly what you like but if you came up and said exactly the same things to me in the street or at a football match or at a theatre, you would be arrested.
“That’s all I want to be able to do, is to live my social media life as I would do in the street.
“In other words, if you threaten to kill me I then can go to the police and I will have recourse.
“There’s a vacuum at the moment and Twitter is just stonewalling, it’s hiding behind the fact that it is an American company.”
Asking Twitter to actively verify the age of users, he said: “I’m seeing increasing amounts of racist abuse from 10 to 18-year-olds, who in some cases need protecting from themselves and I don’t see that. It is easy for a 12-year-old to start up a Twitter account and tweet as a 12-year-old. Now this is surely against social media rules.”
Collymore, however, praised the Stratfordshire Police for their swift action regarding the issue.
He tweeted: “Staffordshire Police coming, again. Just the 5th time. Pity twitter aren’t interested.”
“Police take all complaints seriously, whoever it is. I’ve waited 6 weeks for twitter to provide information to Police. Yet to respond.”
A Staffordshire Police spokesman said: “We’ve been in contact with Mr Collymore to get more information and to reassure him that we will carry out a thorough and detailed investigation. Such behaviour is completely unacceptable and we all have a shared responsibility to treat each other with dignity and respect.”
“It’s our role to investigate complaints of criminal behaviour and, where appropriate, take action. When we become aware of complaints about potential criminal offences, we gather evidence to allow the Crown Prosecution Service to make a decision on whether to charge or not. Our investigation into previous alleged offences is continuing and we are currently liaising with Twitter to obtain subscriber details.”
A Twitter spokeswoman said the company was unable to comment on individual users.