Until tech giants like Instagram deal properly with death threats they will continue to persist

It appears Instagram acted swiftly to remove the user who made rape and death threats to the England and Chelsea midfielder, Karen Carney.

The user – ‘dzo09’ – wrote a series of staggering messages to Carney, who has won 133 caps for England, following Chelsea’s Champions League victory against Fiorentina last Wednesday. “How many chances you need to score in second half stupid bitches,” they said, followed by: “I wish you cancer and leukaemia” and then “and I hope someone will rape you to death”.

Christ. Social media is all pretty anti-social these days.

The messages were reported to the social media giants and the police by Chelsea and the very next day Instagram said they “do not tolerate threatening or abusive behaviour, and the account that sent these messages has been removed from Instagram”. Weird, because as of yesterday afternoon, an account for ‘dzo09’ still showed up on Instagram. Accompanied by a picture of a white male in a white T-shirt, sunglasses and a beard, it says he had made 71 posts, had 375 followers and was following 436 others. It was a private account, so I declined to ask to see his posts, for fear of what I might uncover.

Another message was shared by England manager Phil Neville. It was sent to one of his players, whom he did not name, by user ‘benhughes_15’ which said: “I’m going to rape and kill you. Can I get a headline on BBC sport?” Neville described it as “disgraceful and despicable” and called for Instagram to do a better job of protecting his players. Incidentally, that user no longer appears to exist on the photo-sharing app.

Problem is being poorly tackled

Is this a case of mistaken identity? Who reported what? It’s all rather confusing. Which, ultimately, is part of the problem.

“We encourage anyone who sees content of this kind to report it via our in-app tools and our global team work 24/7 to review and remove anything that violates our community guidelines,” Instagram said.

While this occurred on Instagram, it is unfair to single it out. Facebook and Twitter are rife with it. Threats, racism, abuse, the sort of disgusting rhetoric people are all too comfortable to share while hidden and faceless behind a smartphone or laptop.

Read more: Tyrone Mings: ‘I’m no longer surprised when a football fan calls me a n****r’

But this confusion sums up how poorly the problem is being tackled.

In January, following an interview with Bournemouth defender Tyrone Mings in which he revealed for the first time the true extent of racism and abuse footballers were subjected to on social media, I spent a weekend reporting abuse of all kinds – racist, homophobic, sexist – made to Manchester City and England forward Raheem Sterling in a selection of posts on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

They included calling him a “F***** black boy” and a “Black c***” and a “black b******”. “You f****** n**** and your black fat mom,” one said. “Get your ass back in that ship to Jamaica u monkey cock,” another. Death threats: “I hope your knee caps pop out and you die on the pitch” and “African man I will kill you very very soon animal.” Threats to his children: “F*** off back to Jamaica… I hope your daughter falls off a cliff” and “Hope your kid gets aids.”

This went on and on and on. It was a long weekend. And not one of the best, to be honest. Later, many of the offending messages remained. Some were removed, although some of those were still viewable by other users. I received one email a couple of months later saying action had been taken against one of my reports. That was it. One.

Social media giants must do more

“This kind of abuse is abhorrent, totally unacceptable and very upsetting,” the 31-year-old Carney said of her experience. “It was swiftly reported by the club, as is standard practice. I now trust it will be dealt with by the correct authorities to ensure this doesn’t happen again to either myself or anyone else.

“I would like to thank all those who have offered messages of support, including the fans, media and others within the game. I’d also like to thank Chelsea and the FA who were swift to report those responsible to both Instagram and the police.”

Carney and the FA and Chelsea and Phil Neville all played their part by raising the matter with Instagram and the police. What more could they do?

Until social media companies deal properly with some seriously anti-social behaviour, it is unlikely that this will not happen again – to Carney or anyone else.