The main tennis organizations, including the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the WTA, have launched a service that will monitor social networks to prevent tennis players from suffering insults and threats through them.
As explained by the ITF in a statement, tennis players are subject to “significant levels of harassment and inappropriate behavior through social networks that pose a risk to their preparation, performance and mental health.”
This service, which has the support of the ITF, the WTA, the All England Club, which organizes Wimbledon and the American federation (USTA), will be launched from January 1, 2024.
The tool, called ‘Threat Matrix’, has been developed by the artificial intelligence company Signify Group and will analyze the social networks of tennis players to find insults and threats on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok.
This will also extend to players being able to report harassment they receive through private messages. The service will cover players competing on the ITF circuit, the WTA, as well as Wimbledon and the US Open.
A study carried out by ‘Threat Matrix’ analyzed more than 1.6 million public messages on Twitter and 19,000 comments on Instagram sent to 454 professional players. One in four tennis players received insults.
The International Tennis Federation (ITF), the WTA, the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC, organizer of Wimbledon) and the United States Tennis Association (USTA, organizer of the US Open), have jointly launched “a service of proactive monitoring that aims to protect athletes from online abuse and threats.
Tennis ball
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“Tennis players are subject to significant levels of abuse on social media and other inappropriate online contact, which poses risks to their preparation, performance and mental health.”
In response to this situation, the ITF, WTA, AELTC and USTA have prepared “a proactive monitoring service”, which will begin on January 1, 2024.
This service is called ‘Threat Matrix’, a specialized service developed by the artificial intelligence company ‘Signify Group’ and supported by the threat research and specialist team ‘Quest’ and ‘Theseus Risk Management’.
It will monitor players’ public social networks for abusive and threatening content on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok.
“As part of a unique service, support will also be provided to players who receive abuse or threats through direct private messages,” they add.
2023-12-20 23:10:58
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