Boris Johnson holds showdown with social media firms after England abuse

Boris Johnson will hold a showdown with social media firms today demanding they ‘up their game’ over racist abuse of England’s penalty missers. 

Downing Street said the PM will use the meeting this afternoon to ‘reiterate the urgent need for action’ after the vile trolling.

Mr Johnson told Cabinet earlier that the racists who targeted Three Lions stars Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and teenager Bukayo Saka online had emerged from ‘the darkest recesses of the Internet’.

Ministers are pressing platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to help in hunting down those responsible so they can ‘make an example’ of them.

The premier’s spokesman said: ‘We expect social media firms to do everything they can to identify these people.’ 

It is not yet clear what firms are taking part in the discussion, which was apparently in the diary before the row erupted. 

The trio were targeted after missing their penalties as England suffered Euro 2020 final heartache against Italy.

Twitter says it has since banned more than 1,000 posts following a flurry of abusive messages aimed at England stars.  

Facebook, which owns Instagram, also described the online attacks as ‘abhorrent’ and said its team were working to remove the comments. 

But Government is pushing social media companies to hand over details of abusive users to the authorities in a ‘more timely manner’. 

England defender Harry Maguire and Love Island presenter Laura Whitmore are among the high-profile figures who have called for ID to be required when opening a social media account. 

‘We want real-life consequences for the people who are tweeting this abuse,’ a source told the Times.

‘We need to find out who these people are and make examples of them. This is not beyond their (social media firms’) capabilities.’

It comes after players including Saka, who is just 19 years old, were targeted with a torrent of racial abuse after England’s heartbreaking defeat at Wembley.

The Arsenal star looked visibly distraught after missing the decisive penalty on Sunday night and was comforted by senior England players such as Harry Kane and manager Gareth Southgate.

But after the game finished, social media users targeted the young star, who is black, with monkey emojis. Another wrote: ‘Hate you’.  

Twitter yesterday revealed how it has removed more than 1,000 racist posts targeting England football stars following the defeat.

A spokesperson for the social media site said: ‘The abhorrent racist abuse directed at England players last night has absolutely no place on Twitter.

‘In the past 24 hours, through a combination of machine learning based automation and human review, we have swiftly removed over 1,000 Tweets and permanently suspended a number of accounts for violating our rules – the vast majority of which we detected ourselves proactively using technology.

‘We will continue to take action when we identify any Tweets or accounts that violate our policies.

‘We have proactively engaged and continue to collaborate with our partners across the football community to identify ways to tackle this issue collectively and will continue to play our part in curbing this unacceptable behaviour – both online and offline.’  

Facebook meanwhile told MailOnline: ‘No one should have to experience racist abuse anywhere, and we don’t want it on Instagram. 

‘We quickly removed comments and accounts directing abuse at England’s footballers last night and we’ll continue to take action against those that break our rules. 

‘In addition to our work to remove this content, we encourage all players to turn on Hidden Words, a tool which means no one has to see abuse in their comments or DMs.

‘No one thing will fix this challenge overnight, but we’re committed to keeping our community safe from abuse.’ 

Despite the strong words, the social media sites faced pressure to get a grip on racist abuse or face punitive action in the wake of sickening abuse aimed at black England footballers. 

Royalty, leading politicians including the Prime Minister and even the Archbishop of Canterbury slammed trolls who targeted stars such as Rashford,  Sancho and Saka after last night’s Euro 2020 heartbreak.

Police are now investigating but social media firsts have come under presser to take swifter and more decisive action against offenders.  

Julian Knight, chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, said: ‘The racist abuse of England players online is repellent and vile.

‘Perpetrators should be getting a knock on the door from the police and facing the full force of the law.

‘Social media companies once alerted to this abuse have an acute responsibility to immediately take it down.

‘The Government needs to get on with legislating the tech giants. Enough of the foot dragging, all those who suffer at the hand of racists, not just England players, deserve better protections now.’  

Boris Johnson said he felt ‘sad and rueful’ this morning, but thanked Gareth Southgate and the England team for ‘lifting our spirits and bringing joy to our country’.

And he took a strong line in condemning the racist online trolls, saying: ‘Shame on you – I hope you crawl back under the stone from which you emerged.’

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said yesterday that he shared the anger at the abuse, adding: ‘Social media companies need to up their game in addressing it and, if they fail to, our new Online Safety Bill will hold them to account with fines of up to 10 per cent of global revenue.’

The Bill will put a new legal duty of care on online companies to protect their UK users from harm, including people receiving abusive comments, threats and harassment online.

However, it has also faced criticism over fears that it risks stifling the free press, ‘silencing marginalised voices’ and introducing ‘state-backed censorship on a scale never seen in a liberal democracy’.

Campaigners warned that in its draft form it could also be used to target wider freedom of expression including from the media – and could even result in blanket bans for publishers. 

Ofcom will be in charge of regulating social media firms, with the power to issue fines up to £18million and block access for repeat offences.

The aim is to make Britain one of the safest places to be online in the world – especially for children.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said yesterday social media companies ‘can no longer ignore’ racist and vile abuse on their platforms.

She told the Commons: ‘Social media companies, in particular, have a clear responsibility for the content that they host on their platforms and they can no longer ignore some of the appalling, vile, racist, violent and hateful content that appears on their platforms.’