The All England Lawn Tennis Club is using artificial intelligence for the first time to protect players at Wimbledon from online abuse, according to The Guardian.
Its monitors reveal death threats, racism and sexist comments in 35 languages.
The likes of Emma Raducanu, the 2021 US Open champion from Britain, and Naomi Oska, a four-time major champion, have complained about having to delete Twitter, now X, and Instagram from their phones. Brit Harriet Dart, the British No.2, revealed after overcoming No.1 Katie Boulter how she limits her use of social media due to “hate” messaging.
She said: “I just think there’s a lot of positives for social media but also a lot of negatives. I’m sure today, if I open one of my apps regardless if I won, I’d have a lot of hate as well.”
Tournament director Jamie Baker, the former British No.2, said Wimbledon introduced “social media monitoring service Threat Matrix” and that it will be used at the US Open, it is reported.
Baker said to the newspaper: “This is not something you would see in the public domain at all. You won’t see us shout about it, but basically we are scrolling social media for any of this type of content and it means that we can get information that we haven’t had in the past.
“We’re not just relying on what the player might be saying has happened to them, but also if there is something that is of concern, that is when our security team is going to basically kick in and actually help do something about it.
“If we’ve got anything that we think is a concern or worth flagging, ultimately it’s engaging with the player and then you deal with the next steps on that. The benefit of having it is that you do have the ability to officially register what is going on with the right people there.
“But we wouldn’t be taking any of those steps without actually engaging with the player and their teams to try to get a feel of what’s going on.”
