The All England Lawn Tennis Club has used artificial intelligence for the first time to protect players at Wimbledon from online abuse.
The AI-powered service monitors players’ public-facing social media profiles and automatically flags death threats, racist and sexist comments in 35 different languages.
Former US Open champion Emma Raducanu and four-time Grand Slam winner Naomi Osaka are among the high-profile players targeted online who have previously said Instagram and Twitter (now known as X) must be deleted from their phones.
Harriet Dart, Britain’s second most powerful person, says she only occasionally uses social media because of the “hate” online.
Speaking after her win over British number one Katie Boulter on Thursday, Dutt said: “I think there’s a lot of positives to it [social media] But there are also many negative effects. I’m sure today, if I opened one of those apps, I’d get a lot of hate, too, whether I won or not.
Tournament director Jamie Baker said Wimbledon has introduced social media monitoring service Threat Matrix. The system, developed by artificial intelligence company Signify Group, will also be launched at the U.S. Open.
“It’s not something you see in the public domain at all,” Baker said. “You won’t see us shouting about it, but basically we’ll be scrolling through social media looking for any such content, which means we can Obtain information that was not available in the past.
“We don’t just rely on what players might say happened to them, but if there’s something concerning, our security team basically steps in and actually helps do something about it.”
He said the AI-driven service is supported by people monitoring accounts. Players can choose a more comprehensive service that scans for abuse or threats through private direct messages.
Baker, the former England number two, said Wimbledon would consult with players about abuse before reporting it to tech companies to have it removed, or to the police if deemed necessary.
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Explaining how the service works, Baker said: “If we have anything that we think is worthy of concern or worth reporting, it ends up being an interaction with the player and then you can deal with the next steps. The benefit of having it is, You do have the ability to formally register what’s going on with the right people out there.
“But we wouldn’t be taking any of these steps without actually engaging with players and their teams to understand what’s going on.”
The service is also used by World Rugby, leading to the successful prosecution of an Australian in April after receiving threatening and abusive messages via Facebook during the World Cup.
Wimbledon said Threat Matrix conducted a study that monitored more than 1.6 million public posts and 19,000 Instagram comments sent to 454 players participating in a series of professional tennis tournaments in 2022 and found that four One of the players was abused. It found 546 offensive posts from 438 accounts.
