By Martin Vongsuravatana (FootbAI) 
Players and the violence of social media
Social medias are an integral part of players’ routines. Bodyguard, an online protection company used by PSG, says 68% of them check their social medias before a game. With such a role, social medias can have a strong psychological impact on players. They can be particularly violent. Comments are 11 times more hateful after a defeat. Despite efforts by the leagues and FIFA, online harassment remains a problem. Too many players have to deal with it.
AI is a good ally for players and clubs in the fight against this. NLP, or Natural Language Processing, is key to that.
How can NLP help?
NLP now lets AI easily spot abusive or hateful comments (see our article about NLP). An application with this ability can connect to a player’s or club’s social networks. It can then find such comments on Instagram, X, or TikTok.
This AI can go further by reporting these comments and even initiating legal action. In fact, beyond identification, it would be useful for the AI application to offer support in taking action. Players are generally unaware of the possibilities and the most important thing for them is to concentrate on the sport.
Lastly, the AI can generate reports for the coach or doctor. This will help the staff understand each player’s issues. This is also useful because of a generational gap between staff and players. The staff are less aware of what is happening onlines. Solutions already exist in this area, such as GuardianAI from Sentients Sport, which identifies players at risk and offers ideas for support.
The example of Bodyguard
Bodyguard is a solution that uses artificial intelligence to meet the need for protection and moderation in large quantities. It is used by clubs (PSG, Toulouse FC), leagues (LFP) and broadcasters (beIN Sports).
Its service can automatically delete comments or block users posting hateful content. Moderation takes less than a second and is available in over 40 languages. In addition to hate content, the tool can be used to filter other types of comment (promotional content, scam).
Bodyguard uses AI to address 3 main points:
- Protecting their community: This task is crucial, particularly for the mental health of players and club members. On their action with PSG, 9% of total comments were deleted, which shows the scale of the task in terms of quantity.
- Creating a positive environment: Removing hate speech will improve the comments. It will foster better exchanges and more positive engagement. For PSG, after using Bodyguard, 16% of interactions were made by new people.
- Managing a growing and international audience: AI can process large amounts of data in different languages.
Conclusion: AI can improve the online experience for players, clubs and fans
Artificial intelligence is a good tool for improving the experience of players, clubs and their followers on social medias by using NLP to detect problematic expressions and AI’s quantitative capacity.
To understand what NLP is, you can read our explanatory article.
Read our article on how AI is revolutionising club communication with photo and video recognition.
If you have any questions about AI in football or sport, don’t hesitate to contact our team.
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