Jamal Lowe, the former Swansea striker now with AFC Bournemouth, has opened up on the social media abuse he received last season and blasted the social media giants who choose not to censor the content.
Lowe was one of several Swansea players on the wrong end of vile abuse last season, abuse which led to the club leading the way in boycotting social media in a way that was followed by football – and wider sports – in general.
Despite those actions, which were rightly applauded at the time, we continue to see these instances of social media abuse and Lowe is clear in his view that there is much more that can be done and he questioned immediately why the companies were not doing much right now.
Speaking to the On The Judy podcast, Lowe said: “If I want to post something about coronavirus, I get a little thing that comes up saying: ‘this is false information, if you want real information go to the NHS website’. Or if I want to post something with a song on it, they say you can’t post it because I don’t own the rights.
“So they can obviously censor content and they’re choosing not to.”
“The worst thing is it happened to four players, all different games, in the space of two months. There’s no way to stop it unless we’re verifying accounts.
“I came off Twitter man, it’s too much. I’m just getting bare messages, good and bad. I don’t really need to see both.
“One week I’m seeing: ‘you’re the worst player I’ve ever seen in a Swansea shirt’. The next week: ‘oh my god, you’re my favourite player, can I have your shirt’. I don’t need these messages in my life.”