Posted on 06/13/2021 9:59:20 AM PDT by RandFan
Officials at sporting organisations are increasingly requesting detailed reports into sport stars' social media history to unearth risky and problematic content.
For companies offering so-called online due diligence - or background checks - the headlines around England cricketer Ollie Robinson, who was suspended over offensive historic tweets, are a cautionary tale likely to feature in sales pitches in the coming months and years.
Vipul Mishra and Ian Howard, the co-founders of Neotas, which carries out such checks, said it had seen an increase in demand for their services, including from sporting organisations, which they attributed in part to the Me Too scandal and Black Lives Matter movement.
"There's been a couple of events that have occurred over the last couple of years which have made people very concerned about who they're hiring and who they're investing in," Mr Howard said.
"We see a lot of people concerned about racist content, harassment, bullying, sexual harassment content - and all of those things can come through via this level of screening," he added.
Mr Mishra emphasised the firm's data protection credentials and explained how the company uses machine learning and open source techniques to access publically-available information online.
The machine searches for risk factors, such as racist language, and human analysts then complete final checks and remove any material that's picked up that might infringe a person's privacy, Mr Mishra added.
"We have worked on some cases with marketing agencies that wanted to basically employ sport stars, so we were asked to review social media to see if there was anything reputationally damaging before they engage with them," Mr Howard said.
OLLIE ROBINSON'S "OFFENSIVE" HISTORICAL TWEETS WHICH EARNED HIM A SUSPENSION:
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Parents, have a long talk with your kids about social media. What they post may come back to haunt them years from now.
Just stay off social media.
Yes!! Ollie was 18 when he made these posts I believe and has been indefinitely suspended from his sport.
I can imagine more companies are going to do these “background checks” in future and trawl social media.
“My new muslim friend is the bomb”
Could be something subtle going on there or just a compliment.
Yes... The media are calling them racist and sexist and he must be punished.
They seem pretty mild to me.
It would be best if young people recognized the dangers to their future, and got the hell off of all social media. Go back to hanging out with people in person, and NO recordings.
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