BT visualizes online racial abuse spike with England flag
By Laura Kirkpatrick on Thursday, July 15, 2021
As part of it’s ‘Hope United‘ campaign, BT has reacted to the horrifying surge of racial abuse hurled towards the England Football players after the Euros 2020 final.
Using the tagline #SayNoToRacism, they have captured the spike in online abuse using an audio frequency graph. Working on two levels, the increased frequency resembles the England flag.
As proud partners of England, BT and EE shared the below social post, created by Saatchi & Saatchi:
Three players have given everything to play for their country. And what were they given in return last night?
A spike in racist online abuse. #SayNoToRacism
BT and EE, proud partners of @England. pic.twitter.com/MnGpHX6EBR
— BT (@bt_uk) July 12, 2021
Below the flag it reads ‘Don’t let hate represent us. Online abuse against England players spiked after the game. True fans don’t abuse players.’
BT Sport, alongside agency partner Wunderman Thompson, launched an anti-hate speech campaign back in May. Using their platform as a lens to examine the abuse it’s staff, pundits and football community receives on social media, they produced the eye-opening ‘Draw The Line’ campaign to highlight it’s devastating impact and inspire people to act.
Following this, in response to research that found 1 in 10 people have received online abuse in the past year, BT’s Hope United came together – a diverse team of footballers from across the Home Nations, unified to tackle online hate ahead of the Uefa European Championships.