Talksport Opts for Twitter Silence over Stan Collymore Racist Abuse

Radio station Talksport has reacted to the lack of support from Twitter for presenter and former England football international Stan Collymore following a barrage of abusive messages by abandoning their accounts on the social media website.

Collymore was inundated with death threats and racist messages on Twitter after declaring Liverpool forward Luis Suarez cheated to win a penalty in the 2-2 draw with Aston Villa on Saturday, leading the 43 year old to submitting complaints to the police who have confirmed investigations are underway.

But Collymore has accused Twitter, founded in 2006, of failing to deal adequately with those guilty of sending the abusive messages, with many of the accounts remaining active

"In the last 24 hours I've been threatened with murder several times, demeaned on my race, and many of these accounts are still active. Why?" Collymore wrote.

"I accuse Twitter directly of not doing enough to combat racist/homophobic/sexist hate messages, all of which are illegal in the UK.

"Several police forces have been fantastic. Twitter haven't. Dismayed."

The former Liverpool and Aston Villa striker later told Sky News: "I believe that the number of active [Twitter] users is monetised, so they would much rather have a billion active users who can say whatever the hell they like, rather than spend money on algorithms, scripts, age verification, tying an account to a phone number, or a credit card, which would of course decrease the numbers.

"I've no problem with honestly-held opinions. If people think I'm an idiot, they're more than welcome to say. They're also more than welcome, within the laws of the United Kingdom, to bring up my past.

"That is genuine use of freedom of speech. But freedom of speech means that if anyone walks past me now and calls me some of the things, or makes some of the threats that have been made to me on Twitter, they would be arrested."

In response to Collymore's concerns regarding Twitter's stance on abusive tweets, a statement read: "Twitter is an open communications platform. Our priority is that users are able to express themselves, within acceptable limits and, of course, within the law.

"We cannot stop people from saying offensive, hurtful things on the internet or on Twitter. But we take action when content is reported to us that breaks our rules or is illegal."

Talksport, whom Collymore began working for in 2008, have reacted angrily to the lack of action and their multiple Twitter accounts which drive significant traffic to their website, with a total of over three millions followers, will be inactive until abuse is tackled more effectively.

Chief executive Scott Taunton said: "We are dismayed at the lack of response and perceived inaction by Twitter. Racist or abusive messages of this nature are illegal and unacceptable.

"We have more than three million Twitter followers across our accounts but we will not promote these until we are satisfied that Twitter is doing its utmost to prevent abuse of this nature. We have a duty of care to all our staff and presenters and until I am satisfied that Twitter is treating this seriously we will no longer promote Twitter accounts or use tweets on-air.

"It seems inconceivable that a hi-tech company with a market capitalisation of $30bn appears incapable of preventing racist and abusive tweets being broadcast across its platform."