Korean Footballer Son Heung Min Targeted With Racial Abuse Following Defeat
By Grace Kim
Tottenham Hotspur’s Son Heung Min was the target of racial abuse on social media following a 3-1 Premier League defeat by Manchester United over the weekend.
The 28-year-old forward, who scored the Spur’s only goal during Sunday’s game, was involved in a controversial incident that disallowed a goal by United.
The South Korean international then became a victim of internet trolls on Twitter and Instagram, according to CNN.
“Filthy dog eating Korean c—,” was one of many similar abusive messages that were documented by Twitter users @lclembo29 and @heungmiin.
Son has not yet commented on any of the messages, but the Spurs released a statement calling the racial abuse “abhorrent.”
“We stand with you, Sonny,” they added.
The team announced only last week that they wanted “social media platforms to take action” when their defender Davinson Sanchez also began receiving racist messages, according to BBC.
On Friday, several Premier League managers requested to boycott social media in response to racial abuse. Some football clubs have already begun boycotting over concerns on how the platforms have been handling these issues.
Following the latest abuse Son faced, Instagram’s parent company Facebook also called the messages “abhorrent,” and told CNN that the company will be removing comments that violated its policies.
“We share the goal of tackling online abuse and holding people who share it accountable,” a Facebook spokesperson said. “We recently announced that we’ll take tougher action when we become aware of people breaking our rules in DMs and we have built tools to help protect people, including the ability to never receive a DM from someone you don’t follow. This work is ongoing and we are committed to doing more.”
Feature Image via Getty
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