Racial abuse is unfortunately something that is still common in sport, with athletes being subject to vile abuse on a fairly regular basis.
In the world of football, black players often show that they receive a number of racist messages, should they play poorly or upset a rival team.
In Formula 1, Lewis Hamilton has been consistently campaigning against racism in the sport, have struggled through so much prejudice and racism in his pathway to success.
The Brit has revealed that although he posts fairly often on social media, he no longer ever checks his comments, labelling social media a “toxic place”, due to the presence of trolls who’s only aim is to harm.
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A joint study conducted by The Female Drive and Areto Labs has now revealed just how bad the problem of racist abuse is on social media.
The study took place in October and November unearthed a shocking 5,500 racist comments within F1 social media, with five percent deemed to be ‘high risk’ comments.
These high risk comments mean that “they are considered a threat and describe an intention to inflict pain, injury or violence against an individual or group.”
The Female Drive’s study showed that around one thousand comments used the ‘N-word’, while a further thousand-plus used words such as ‘monkey’ to describe people of colour.
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No one should ever be subjected to this sort of abuse, hence why there are numerous schemes that have been implemented by F1 and the FIA to remove racial abuse from the sport.
Hamilton will need to be careful with how he chooses to protest against racism in 2023, as the FIA have made the decision to ban political, religious and personal gestures from race weekends, if they have not been approved by the FIA.
It is not just racist abuse that is a problem on social media, with sexist and homophobic comments also a regular site in the comments section of driver’s posts, with social media companies being urged to take severe action against these users.