The Use Of Social Media By The AFL To Deal With Social And Political Issues.

The world of social media can be both a happy and a cruel place, especially in this new politically correct world where many ideologies and values clash. One of the main assets that social media allows for a company, is the opportunity to spread awareness and concern about issues and incidents that are relevant to the user and the audience they reach. An example of this is the Australian Football League (AFL), as they do this regularly on social media. As a professional sports league the AFL preach inclusivity in all forms frequently across their platforms. The AFL boasts over one million followers on Instagram and over eight hundred thousand followers on X (Instagram and X 2024), and whilst they can bring attention to these matters with these large followings, I question whether it may do more harm than good. Whilst platforms such as Instagram and X offers the ability for the AFL to call out homophobia and racism, it also causes harm to the situations and those specific minorities that are being discussed. This has been seen clearly across social media and through real life incidents especially in recent times as the AFL begin to call these types of incidents out more and more.

 

The AFLs use of social media in recent times to call out homophobic slurs and actions has caused harm to the outlook of inclusivity in the game as well as causing harm to the participation by LGBTQ+ people in the sport from a professional level all the way down to grass roots. It is clear that in this day and age homophobic incidents have to be called out and dealt with, and that it is a bad look for organisations if no action is taken. Though this is the case, the use of Instagram and X to call these incidents out is the incorrect way to do so due to how public the situation becomes once it moves onto social media. The demographic of viewers of AFLs social medias mean problems are going to be created when dealing with these ‘woke’ issues. The main demographic of consumers on AFL social medias are males, specifically males aged 25 to 34, with 76.32% of website interactions being men (Similarweb 2024). Meaning when the AFL chose to post about homophobic incidents there is a large chance for backlash as that demographic are still coming to terms with the times and what is appropriate in this day and age. This can be seen through a recent event where Jeremy Finlayson used a homophobic slur to an opposition player, and it was picked up by an umpire’s microphone. Due to this Jeremy Finlayson received a 3-match ban, this ban, and other posts regarding the lack of tolerance for homophobia in the AFL were wildly spready across AFL associated socials. Though this spreads awareness, many accounts had to turn off their comments due to the harmful response from AFL fans and the general public. Some of the comments included ‘he’s right anyway’, ‘what a joke’, and ‘worlds gone soft’ (AFL Instagram 2024). A month before this too North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson used a homophobic slur against opposition players in response to an ugly hit on one of his players. In response the comments were similar with the AFL being called out for being ‘soft’ and ‘spineless’ (AFL X 2024). This shows the pointless nature of using social media to gain attention to these incidents as the AFL attempts to use Instagram and X In order to get a positive response to these situations such as the Jeremy Finlayson and Alastair Clarkson ones. But if the response is only increased hatred and frustration making LGBTQ+ members more uncomfortable, then what is the positive in using Instagram and X as platforms to discuss these issues. The LGBTQ+ community see this response from fans and for a sport trying to push the message that the game is for everyone, the use of these socials is just making the opposite so much clearer. Which therefore causes harm to the AFL through their public image; the clubs through the disgruntlement of their fans; and most importantly the LGBTQ+ community through players, fans, and the LGBTQ+ people in general who see these hurtful comments. There are zero openly gay players in the AFL and the use of these social medias does not give the message to players that it is okay to be that way.

 

Similar to homophobia, whilst racism is a huge issue and has no place in society; the AFL using Instagram and X to continuously name and shame and call out racism is harmful on many different levels. Racism is something that has tarnished and been with the AFL for generations the same way many of Australia’s roots come from racist beginnings with indigenous people. I do not mean to say that I believe racism shouldn’t be called out and dealt with but doing so in such a public fashion is dangerous due to the ability for people on social media to operate anonymously behind a keyboard whilst dishing the same cruel and unnecessary racist blows that still hurt those they are intended for. One key example of this is the Adam Goodes situation, in May of 2013 Goodes during a match at the MCG between Collingwood and Sydney was racially vilified by a 13-year-old girl. The young girl referred to Goodes as an ‘ape’ as he went to collect a loose ball from the boundary line (The Age 2013). Goodes handled this by going very public with his disgust and sadness about the situation, as well as the AFL standing with Goodes and being very public about It on social media. The response from this was extremely harmful, people believed Goodes was being unfair on the little girl; from this situation things spiraled with Goodes getting ‘booed’ at nearly every away game he attended. Eventually it was too much for Goodes and a large factor in his decision to retire. This shows the harmful affect using social media as a platform to expose and call out can have on those whom the awareness was originally meant to assist. More recently retired AFL player Eddie Betts was racially vilified at his own home, with a man driving past Betts’s house exclaiming the n word three times whilst his kids were playing outside. Betts took action to this by posting the clip off the incident from his security cameras on Instagram, this was also reposted by the AFL. The AFL also released a statement containing ‘We wish to stand with Eddie and his family and thank him for bringing this disturbing behaviour to our attention. We must not look away, rather we must stand together to play our part to reduce racism.’ (Andrew Dillon AFL 2024). In response to this people replied on X, posting comments such as ‘Betts loves racism, if it’s not there, he’ll create it.’ and ‘Betts goes looking for cameras to sook In front of when one white man yells the N word to his family, yet you can’t find him when HIS people are behaving like feral assholes.’ (X 2024). As you can see the response gained from using social media as the main platform to bring awareness to this is unsuccessful and initiates the opposite response from football fans and trolls sitting behind their phones or keyboards. The use of social media allows racists and uneducated Australians to have their say no matter how vulgar or disrespectful as they are able to do it anonymously without risk of backlash.

 

The fault is not purely on the AFL and its corresponding partners. Whilst social medias such as Instagram and X build a platform for issues such as homophobia and racism to be discussed, they do not do a good enough job of monitoring distasteful and ugly posts by their users. At times social media can be a hurtful and dark place, the ease as to which people are able to create aliases through burner accounts and other methods, means that many users share hurtful, violent and hateful comments that are not welcome in society. It is the role of social media sites to monitor these comments to ensure the minimization of cyber bullying, trolling and other electronic based targeting. Though this seems like an easy process, these social media platforms continuously allow hateful behaviour to happen across their applications. X being considerably worse on this front. Instagram attempt to monitor some comments through a ‘hidden comments’ tab on posts but by one press all these comments can be viewed deeming this method pointless and a sorry excuse of an attempt to hinder hate speech on their plactform. Example of the negligence shown by these social media platforms can be related to X (previously known as twitter). In November 2022 Twitter (X) decided to reinstate previously banned accounts with a history of hate speech and other societal breaches (ADL 2023). From October 2022 through to March 2023 tweets of slurs referring to the LGBTQ+ community rose 119% as well as reports of online hate rising 6% (Time 2023). To make things worse, according to sources X’s method to reduce hate speech is not actually to delete the posts and comments but instead to try and limit the amount of clicks these hateful posts get (Time 2023). This evidence clearly supports my thesis that social media sites are not doing enough to deal with and monitor hateful comments. Instagram and X are taking an, allow it but hide it, approach. All this approach does is offer more protection for trolls and people using social media as a platform for hate, as they are able to continue operating behind a shadow. The negative impact this has on minorities and members of the LGBTQ+ community is drastic, as by doing this, these social media sites are indicating that is okay to share hate speech and hurtful comments as long as it is done in a quiet manner, which is a similar outlook and attitude that upsets these communities in real life through racism and homophobia. This issue is an easy fix, Instagram and X have the technology and the ability to deal with this, to delete these posts and to take action. The main question is why do they chose not to do so.

 

Throughout this piece, I have discussed the issues concerning the use of social media as a platform to discuss certain problems such as homophobia and racism. The points stated specifically bring relation to the response of social media users to politically focused material posted by the AFL and its corresponding forms of media. Whilst social media offers a platform and space for companies and organization such as the AFL to share thoughts and bring attention to socially relevant topics such as homophobia and racism, it is a poor place to do so due to the lack of monitorization and action taken by social media websites such as Instagram and X. Social media should be a place where these thoughts can be shared as it presents the opportunity for users to reach a large number of people from many different demographics. Instagram and X need to review and fix their plans towards monitorization, whether that is through flagging key words, having people work around the clock or through the use of artificial intelligence to track hate speech. Until this is done social media will not be a safe or appropriate space for organisations such as the AFL to discuss subjects relating to topics such as social justice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

REFERENCES:

 

Gough, Jon Pierik and Deborah. “Schoolgirl Apologises to ‘heartbroken’ Swans Star.” The Age, May 25, 2013. https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/schoolgirl-apologises-to-heartbroken-swans-star-20130525-2n3fn.html.

 

Dillon, Andrew. “AFL Statement from CEO Andrew Dillon and Tanya Hosch.” afl.com.au, March 29, 2024. https://www.afl.com.au/news/1096343/afl-statement-from-ceo-andrew-dillon-and-tanya-hosch#:~:text=Racism%20is%20harmful.,racist%20behaviour%20is%20never%20welcome.

 

Threads of Hate: How Twitter’s Content Moderation Misses the Mark, May 24, 2023. https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/threads-hate-how-twitters-content-moderation-misses-mark.

 

Extremists and Conspiracy Theorists Reemerge on Twitter, February 9, 2023. https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/extremists-and-conspiracy-theorists-reemerge-twitter.

Afl.com.au Traffic Analytics, ranking Stats & Tech Stack, 2024. https://www.similarweb.com/website/afl.com.au/.

AFL Instagram, 2024. https://www.instagram.com/afl/?hl=en.

“AFL – Twitter.” AFL X 2024. Accessed April 12, 2024. https://twitter.com/AFL.