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| Facebook and Twitter are criticized by English players |
After England lost to Italy in the European Championship final, Facebook and Twitter were criticized for failing to move quickly to counter a series of racist attacks against English footballers.
After England's defeat, Marcus Rashford, Jaden Sancho and Bukayo Saka have been the targets of numerous racist comments on major social media platforms.
Three players missed the penalty shootout against Italy.
The Football Association issued a statement condemning the abuse, saying online racism against some English players on social media had caused "outrage".
"Anyone behind this disgusting behavior is not welcome to follow the team," the association said on Twitter. We are doing everything we can to support the players involved and we are asking for the toughest sanctions from all those responsible.
The backlash against racism is highlighting online abuse via social media and raising the question whether tech companies are taking reasonable steps to combat such behaviour.
Over the weekend in April, many major sports teams and athletes in the UK boycotted Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to protest the companies' failure to crack down on racist messaging.
The UK government wants to take action against big tech companies that distribute harmful content.
The law, known as the Online Security Act, would give Ofcom the power to impose a fine of up to 18 million pounds ($24.9 million) or 10% of sales, whichever is greater, worldwide for violations.
Facebook and Twitter come under fire
Britain's culture minister said in a tweet: "I am outraged by the appalling racist abuse suffered by our heroic players.
He added, "Social media companies need to improve their management. If they don't, they will be fined up to 10% of global sales under the new law."
British politician and Conservative MP Damian Collins (Damian Collins) has targeted Facebook. The tech giant asked how many accounts it had deleted due to its terms of service, which ban hate speech.
A Facebook spokesperson said the company has taken swift action to stamp out racist slurs against English players on Instagram.
"No one should be a victim of racist abuse anywhere," he added. We quickly removed the comments and accounts of abusive footballers in England. We will continue to crack down on those who break our rules.
A Twitter spokesperson said: "Racism against English players has no place on Twitter. We have removed over 1,000 tweets in the past 24 hours. We have permanently banned some accounts that violate our rules.