Racist tweets targeting Danny Welbeck and Raheem Sterling were still up on the site five years after being posted, a Press Association investigation found.
Huffington Post reports that Twitter has been urged to take action after racially abusive tweets targeting Premier League footballers were found on the site up to five years after being posted.
One post dated from September 2014 described Arsenal striker Welbeck as a “f****** cotton picking n*****”, while another aimed at Manchester City’s Sterling during Euro 2016 described him as “just a typical c**n all pace no brain”.
Similar racist posts were also found which targeted Chelsea’s Michy Batschuayi, Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Tottenham’s Moussa Sissoko.
Twitter deleted the tweets after the Press Association brought them to its attention. The posts were discovered a day after the Government issued a white paper on “online harms”, which proposes new measures to regulate internet companies who do not adequately protect their users.
A Twitter spokesman said: “Our primary objective is to serve and improve the health of the public conversation. This means surfacing more quality, credible content, building new policies and safety tools, and tackling issues such as abuse which detract from the health of the public conversation.”
Anti-racism campaigners Kick It Out said the technologies Twitter has in place to tackle the issues are “evidently” not working. “Footballers, like anyone in society, are entitled to go about their work without being abused, intimidated or trolled,” a spokesman said.
