No More Harry - Premier League 2020/21

[Jah Womble]

They absolutely can and they should be, as TonTon says.

They and we cannot pretend that a tweet like that was sent in a vacuum and is context free. The club's media officer (and/or whoever wrote it) and the club's owner who endorsed it did so in the certain foreknowledge it would prompt sexist abuse of a female professional doing nothing more than going about her job in already difficult circumstances. They and the club should suffer sanctions for that.

This is my whole point - as much as I think they've behaved stupidly, it would be almost impossible to issue these 'sanctions' of which people speak on such grounds. We can all say what we believe to be right and correct, but they've not said anything that could be used against them in such capacity. (One might say that they've been very clever in avoiding such language - but 'clever' would be doing a lot of seriously heavy lifting in this instance.)

It's all very well to make statements like 'certain foreknowledge', but that I'm afraid can only ever be an observer's conjecture (however widely-believed it might be). Try to understand that none of this means that I'm defending Leeds at all - I'm not, they've been absolute twunts here - however, saying that 'we cannot pretend' may well be correct, but if we're honest here it isn't going to be nearly enough to see action taken against them.

All the club's PR has to do is come up with some kind of statement to the contrary - which I suspect they might be capable of doing - and then we're back to square onesville.

The issue here is a far bigger one, unfortunately.

[DCI Harry Batt]

I really don't understand the manlawyer impulse. But there you go, there will always be people spending their time insisting that Leeds can't be expected to know anything or do anything cos some technicality they dreamed up.

Anyway, I thought this piece from Beth Fisher was interesting. In case it disappears behind a paywall:

ere’s the thing; we women are not afraid of criticism or negative comments when it comes to our work. We expect it. Like every person working in the sports industry, whether male or female, we know every comment or opinion will be scrutinised because sport provokes emotions. People are entitled to agree or disagree. That is the beauty of sport.

I do not mind criticism. It makes you a better person. Therefore, this is not about Karen Carney being pulled up for what she says as a pundit.

This is about women being criticised while having their gender used against them, with disgusting words.

When Leeds United mockingly responded to comments Karen made while simply doing her job, many of the responses on Twitter were revolting.

Leeds have now condemned the abuse and have apparently been in contact with Karen regarding their tweet because they were “taken aback” by the sexist comments she was sent.

Well, I can tell you what, Leeds – we were not taken aback at all and this is the very reason so many of us were outraged by your irresponsible actions. We do not want to be protected or helped along the way. We are stronger than we look – it must be down to all those years working hard in the kitchen … But we have seen in other industries that online trolling can really affect people. It is important that men understand the complexities we women face within this industry and other industries. I knew that if I made any mistakes, unfortunately my gender would be used against me.

It is the same when sportswomen are trolled – it is never a mistake they make on the pitch, it is because they are a woman. Meanwhile, a sportsman can make the same mistake and he is scrutinised for just that – a mistake.

Women receive abhorrent messages online, even rape threats. It becomes not about being in the sport industry, it becomes about this threat against women and using their gender against them. I have become really detached from it over the years, but when it has happened to me, the worst thing was seeing my family read it. My poor mother would say, “that is absolutely foul”.

I wonder what I would have done today if Karen was a member of my family, or a loved one. I think I would have absolutely lost it. We are not talking about just the person involved here, it is about the friends and family around them, who cannot protect them.

It is why so many women working in sport have come out and been quite strong about how we feel about this. We know it could quite easily happen to any of us, purely for having an opinion.

And yet, is not having an opinion what a good pundit is supposed to do?

Quite often pundits are slammed for not having a view either way. We have quite clearly seen here that someone who has a different, diverse opinion – Karen, a brilliant pundit and ex-player – does not sit on the fence, she gets vilified for it.

My issue with what Leeds did was that, whether you agreed with Karen’s comments or not, what they are basically saying is that you are not allowed to have “this” type of opinion and, in doing what they did, they opened the door to the vitriol sexist hate that we are so used to seeing online aimed towards us.

Do we want pundits – men and women – to sit on the fence more because they fear clubs and fans will string them up ready for ridicule?

As women, we are far too used to such ridicule in football. We are under no illusions – often it feels like we are not welcome within the game.

What is totally inappropriate is Leeds’ lack of awareness. We all have a responsibility to be sensitive to what people have to face, whether it be sexism, homophobia, transphobia or racism. Leeds, as a Premier League club, should have been more aware of what their actions were going to provoke.

Women are still not on an even playing field when it comes to gender equality in sport; from professional clubs to boardrooms and everything in between.

We are having to do our very best to tread through the minefield without making any perceived mistakes.

Yet we do not want protection or privilege, thank you. We just do not want to be threatened with sexual violence and sexist comments every time you disagree with our opinion.

And this piece from Suzanne Wrack in the guardian - which doesn't use a paywall. I'd be harder on Leeds than either of them, but I don't rely on football for my living.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

This is my whole point - as much as I think they've behaved stupidly, it would be almost impossible to issue these 'sanctions' of which people speak on such grounds. We can all say what we believe to be right and correct, but they've not said anything that could be used against them in such capacity. (One might say that they've been very clever in avoiding such language - but 'clever' would be doing a lot of seriously heavy lifting in this instance.)

It's all very well to make statements like 'certain foreknowledge', but that I'm afraid can only ever be an observer's conjecture (however widely-believed it might be). Try to understand that none of this means that I'm defending Leeds at all - I'm not, they've been absolute twunts here - however, saying that 'we cannot pretend' may well be correct, but if we're honest here it isn't going to be nearly enough to see action taken against them.

All the club's PR has to do is come up with some kind of statement to the contrary - which I suspect they might be capable of doing - and then we're back to square onesville.

The issue here is a far bigger one, unfortunately.

The issue here is very simple. It's about professionalism. For some inexplicable reason, the Leeds twitter account is run by an emotionally stunted superfan, who is using the clubs standing with their fans to create bantz-mobs against their perceived enemies. It's embarrassingly unprofessional behaviour, and makes leeds look like a small time club, a club that doesn't employ a professional to communicate with the outside world, but a psychologically damaged basement dweller, on a personal journey to 4chan, 5g conspiracies, and inceldom. A club's twitter account is there to give fans information around matches, who's in the team, and to direct people to articles on the website. That's it. If you want to be a bantz merchant, there are plenty of people already in that 'twitterspace'

This isn't the first time that the Leeds twitter account has engaged in thin-skinned banter, I believe Chris Wilder, Gabby agbonlahor, and pizza hut have felt their wrath. The problem with giving the Club's imprimatur to bantz pile-ons, is that you have no control over the thing you have unleashed, and given how frequently Bantz is used to give cover to misogynistic bollocks, then you are 100% responsible if you launch a twitter pile on on a woman, because there is a 200% chance that this is quickly going to dissolve into sexist abuse, and worse. This is fucking 2020, and it is clear that there are consequences to cunts doing a trump on twitter.

You have to have the mind of a dim child in order not to foresee what was going to happen here. That's a major part of the reason why a 'professional' twitter account doesn't usually behave like this, because the risk of something you do getting out of control and resulting in some terrible outcome, and a PR disaster is essentially inevitable. If you can't foresee the possible downsides to your behaviour, then you have no business being employed in the field of communications.

[Jah Womble]

I really don't understand the manlawyer impulse. But there you go, there will always be people spending their time insisting that Leeds can't be expected to know anything or do anything cos some technicality they dreamed up.

The only reason for what you rather extravagantly describe as a 'manlawyer impulse' is as response to this otherwise fanciful dishing out of punishments that don't exist - all this 'we all know what it means'-shtick. If somebody cannot state the potential flaws in such arguments, then there's little point in discussing it at all.

Do I think that this kind of behaviour precipitates online bullying/misogyny? Yes, far too often it does. Can I prove this? On occasion, absolutely. In this instance, very doubtful.

And no, I'm not defending Leeds in the slightest, nor - as I seem to have to keep repeating - offering them a get-out here. I'm just trying to remain realistic.

The issue here is very simple. It's about professionalism. For some inexplicable reason, the Leeds twitter account is run by an emotionally stunted superfan, who is using the clubs standing with their fans to create bantz-mobs against their perceived enemies. It's embarrassingly unprofessional behaviour, and makes leeds look like a small time club, a club that doesn't employ a professional to communicate with the outside world, but a psychologically damaged basement dweller, on a personal journey to 4chan, 5g conspiracies, and inceldom. A club's twitter account is there to give fans information around matches, who's in the team, and to direct people to articles on the website. That's it. If you want to be a bantz merchant, there are plenty of people already in that 'twitterspace'

This isn't the first time that the Leeds twitter account has engaged in thin-skinned banter, I believe Chris Wilder, Gabby agbonlahor, and pizza hut have felt their wrath. The problem with giving the Club's imprimatur to bantz pile-ons, is that you have no control over the thing you have unleashed, and given how frequently Bantz is used to give cover to misogynistic bollocks, then you are 100% responsible if you launch a twitter pile on on a woman, because there is a 200% chance that this is quickly going to dissolve into sexist abuse, and worse. This is fucking 2020, and it is clear that there are consequences to cunts doing a trump on twitter.

You have to have the mind of a dim child in order not to foresee what was going to happen here. That's a major part of the reason why a 'professional' twitter account doesn't usually behave like this, because the risk of something you do getting out of control and resulting in some terrible outcome, and a PR disaster is essentially inevitable. If you can't foresee the possible downsides to your behaviour, then you have no business being employed in the field of communications.

Not much there with which I'd disagree at all.

Also not much there that will 'stick', unfortunately - as I've said all along. Which is the reality of the success behind soapboxes like Twitter: dickheads see a place in which to pitch their tents, knowing all too well that they cannot be touched. Sure, you have 'no control' over what you're unleashing - but by the same token, trying to make one voice responsible for a bunch of cretinous keyboard warriors isn't going to hold water either. So, if there are consequences, realistically - and without major changes occurring in social media (which I advocated upthread) - what are they?

As for why Leeds United as a club would actually wish to be seen in this kind of light, well, I've no ****ing idea - again, as I've said all along. They can do something - they can dismiss the tool who's been posting this kind of nonsense and employ somebody to do the job more professionally.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

I feel that as one of the few known Leeds fans on the board I ought not to be completely silent on the issue of this tweet etc. I have to admit, it's a shaming episode deserving of strong condemnation and (particularly in the light of the initial follow up by the owner) some sort of sanction (though not a football competition-related sanction in my view). The club, and in particular the owner, could and should do much more to apologise for, and help remedy to the extent possible, the harm caused. I can't disagree with Berbaslug's comments on the club's Twitter record, and I've found the articles linked by TonTon pretty educational. Just out of respect for due process etc. it strikes me that the appropriate extent of sanctions ought, from a legal perspective rather than that of gut feeling, to depend on the extent to which questions around PL clubs' conduct of their public communications policies, including social media, are regulated by any existing rules which have clear application to the situation.

As for the narky comments on here about Leeds and its fans generally, life is too short to engage with those.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Also not much there that will 'stick', unfortunately - as I've said all along. Which is the reality of the success behind soapboxes like Twitter: dickheads see a place in which to pitch their tents, knowing all too well that they cannot be touched. Sure, you have 'no control' over what you're unleashing - but by the same token, trying to make one voice responsible for a bunch of cretinous keyboard warriors isn't going to hold water either. So, if there are consequences, realistically - and without major changes occurring in social media (which I advocated upthread) - what are they?

The only thing that you can really do here is give Leeds a good kicking, which seems to have been done, and to make it clear to other clubs that if they don't want to get a massive public kicking they'd better sort out their twitter accounts, and to leave the traditional english bantz to the real experts, Paddy Power. No-one wants their twitter account to turn into a PR nightmare, and this should now be abundantly clear. The Thing is that knowing that you have no control over what you unleash isn't an excuse that exculpates you from responsibility, it's something that should make you super-hyper-mega fucking careful.

You're not trying to punish the idiot who does the Leeds twitter, idiots are going to idiot. You're trying to get all the other clubs to ensure that they don't have an idiot running their twitter. It's incredibly easy to find someone who can do this properly, there's no excuse to have a superfan fool in charge of this. You don't even have to fire this gom. Give him a brush, or get him to clean some boots or something.

At the other extreme of handling these things, Cavani got a three match ban for his instagram post, but instead of bitching about it, or fighting some sort of forlorn battle against it, man utd while pointing out that there was no racist intent, it was an obvious breach of the rules, and out of support for the campaign against racism they wouldn't be contesting the charge. Now the point here isn't about the moral character of man utd god knows, or edinson cavani, it's that they know he didn't mean anything bad by it, but it is a definite 100% certain conviction under the rules, so instead of making a fuss about something that you can't change, or throwing a tantrum, they have gone for the response that a) ends the story completely and b) doesn't launch an attack on 'political correctness gone mad' and the foundations of anti-racism in football just because one of their players got suspended.

[Jah Womble]

Nope, I agree - the Cavani incident has been handled absolutely correctly by Man Utd. And to his credit, the player (who does appear a very decent individual) has also expressed what seems to be genuine regret that his comments have offended. Not a desirable situation, but a very helpful outcome.

Replacing the Leeds guy would be merely the first step, but the 'first step' it should be - at least then a point is being publicly illustrated. Trying to re-educate the broader population of such types is a far tougher ask, unfortunately.

[DCI Harry Batt]

And Karen Carney has removed herself from twitter. The "realistic" option.

[EIM]

"Leeds have yet to publicly acknowledge any link between their actions and the outcome, but privately there is distress at the response, which was not anticipated by the club."

Oh right.

"The tweet is expected to remain on the Leeds account, in the belief that deleting it may provoke a second tide of abuse.

Oh right.

[Jah Womble]

And Karen Carney has removed herself from twitter. The "realistic" option.

Nowt to do with 'realistic' at all - just a good move. And I'd say it was a good move in the same way that I'd say to anyone that it was a good move.

Twitter is a cesspit.

[EIM]

Nowt to do with 'realistic' at all - just a good move. And I'd say it was a good move in the same way that I'd say to anyone that it was a good move.

Twitter is a cesspit.

Shouldn't something be done to make Twitter not a cesspit, rather than letting the abusers chase people off the platform?

[caja-dglh]

Shouldn't something be done to make Twitter not a cesspit, rather than letting the abusers chase people off the platform?

They typically ban abusive people. Slowly.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

The problem is that "football twitter" is a cesspit of misogyny, racism and homophobia. It's been like this for years.

That's not necessarily Leeds' fault, just as it wasn't Millwall's fault. But where Leeds (and other clubs) are responsible is how they engage with these people, whether they appear to be on their side or not - the tone they set and whatnot.

People are going to jump on critical stuff pundits say about their favourite team whatever, but when the club's official twitter does exactly the same thing it sends a very clear message to fans that the club is on their side when they send social media abuse. When Millwall change their "anti-racist" gesture to appease their fans it achieves the exact same thing. They're complicit if not in the racist and sexist abuse then in creating the culture where fans feel comfortable dishing out racist and sexist abuse in their club's name.

Like it's up to clubs how welcome they make these sorts of people.

[EIM]

They typically ban abusive people. Slowly.

I got banned for calling a fictional character from a Disney film a "busy cunt". Lifetime ban. Immediate. They classed that as a threat of violence, or something. They have the power, yet given then continuing abundance of misogynist violence on the platform, they're choosing not to wield it. You have to wonder why.

I mean, I don't really think letting women be hounded and chased off Twitter is any way a good move.

[caja-dglh]

I got banned for calling a fictional character from a Disney film a "busy cunt". Lifetime ban. Immediate. They classed that as a threat of violence, or something. They have the power, yet given then continuing abundance of misogynist violence on the platform, they're choosing not to wield it. You have to wonder why.

I mean, I don't really think letting women be hounded and chased off Twitter is any way a good move.

Yeah - it was a bit of a joke at your situation. People need to protect the purity of Disney.

I barely got the point of twitter anyway. Seems like a lot of people shouting at each other.

[EIM]

Yeah - it was a bit of a joke at your situation. People need to protect the purity of Disney.

I barely got the point of twitter anyway. Seems like a lot of people shouting at each other.

It still hurts, man.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Replacing the Leeds guy would be merely the first step, but the 'first step' it should be - at least then a point is being publicly illustrated. Trying to re-educate the broader population of such types is a far tougher ask, unfortunately.

See I don't know if there is anything beyond a first step. There's just "Football clubs need to cop the fuck on on twitter". I don't know what else can be done. "Bantz" is that cultural phase that a lot of english people, particularly men, go through on their path to being Gammons. I don't know what football can do about it, other than stop "leaning into it." I mean if you take Banter out of the way that football is covered in england, all you have left are some videos of people playing football. One way would be to ban advertising for sports betting full stop. Though I would also like to suggest the public crucifixion of all paddy power executives above the level of shop manager. You could put some of them up on the seven sisters road, and you could put the rest on the M62

Social media is a two sided thing. on the one hand it allows hateful dickheads to do their hateful dickhead thing in anonymity, or not as the case may be, which means that you have to be careful that nothing you yourself do gives them an opportunity to be dickheads, because on the other hand social media gives people you never had to care about before, the opportunity to turn up en masse on your timeline to call you a cunt. That leeds reaction reminds me of someone in a medieval tavern saying "I got up yesterday morning, pissed in my chamberpot as you do, and threw it out the window as you do, then there was a knock at the door, and when I answered it as you do, some cunt who stank of piss punched me in the face for no reason. Society is going to hell."

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

See I don't know if there is anything beyond a first step. There's just "Football clubs need to cop the fuck on on twitter". I don't know what else can be done.

Maybe Leeds could give as much space to promoting their women's team on their twitter feed as they do mocking pundits who have the temerity to criticise them

[DCI Harry Batt]

Shouldn't something be done to make Twitter not a cesspit, rather than letting the abusers chase people off the platform?

No, the best thing to do is to tell the woman being abused she should leave twitter, and tell anyone who thinks Leeds should be held responsible for what they do that they are being unrealistic. That's the best way to behave. Definitely.

[Jah Womble]

Cleaning up social media is exactly what I said initially. (Obviously not just Twitter, which just happens to be the worst.) But of course there’s more mileage to be had for others in the placing of out-of-context comments in amusing ‘quote’ marks to misrepresent a point that differs from theirs.

Sure, let’s just continue with the ‘chop off their hands!’ knee-jerk overreactions, which are obviously a very practical solution to the problem.

[delicatemoth]

That thing where people/groups/institutions with large reach leverage that reach in a deniable way to target individuals or groups they don't like is called stochastic terrorism. "Twitter is a cesspit" is only partially true, because a lot of it comes from newspapers and broadcasters, but what is true is that Twitter makes this particularly easy to do. A good example from 2019 is Laura Kuenssberg doxing a member of the public who was bothered about conditions in hospitals with a "here he is" tweet.

From Twitter, a worrying thread about Covid at Newcastle Utd and how it spread through the squad and families. Lascelles and Saint-Maximin now have long Covid.

https://twitter.com/aut_omnia/status/1345023740032245761

[DCI Harry Batt]

Thanks for sharing that, dm. Gonna nick it for the Footballers & Coronavirus thread.

[EIM]

"But of course there’s more mileage to be had for others in the placing of out-of-context comments in amusing ‘quote’ marks to misrepresent a point that differs from theirs."

"Sure, let’s just continue with the ‘chop off their hands!’..."

[Foot of Astaire's]

I'm not on Twitter and stories like this aren't likely to tempt me on there.

I cant say I'm surprised at Leeds being upset at their promotion being cheapened by a pundit but is it not the done thing for an official Twitter account to respond?

Misogynistic bell ends being called out for abuse and being kicked off the platform makes sense. I'm just struggling a little to see what Leeds did wrong, initially anyway.

[Sits]

Enabling the bell ends.