Twitter, Facebook struggle to control racist use of emojis

Johnson said he warned executives from Facebook, Twitter, ByteDance Ltd’s TikTok, Snapchat Inc and Instagram at a Tuesday meeting that they need to crack down on online abuse. — Reuters

A wave of online racism aimed at some of England’s Black football players has highlighted how social media companies’ content moderation systems are failing to monitor the use of emojis.

On Sunday, England’s men’s football team, playing in their first major tournament final since 1966, fell to Italy on penalties. In the aftermath, a wave of racist abuse was levelled at three Black England players – Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka – and messages on social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram included monkey and banana emojis.