In a bid to protect Wimbledon players from online harassment, the All England Lawn Tennis Club is reportedly using artificial intelligence for the first time. The Guardian. Using artificial intelligence, the program monitors players’ publicly visible social media accounts and highlights racist, sexist and death-threatening comments in 35 different languages.
High-profile players including former US Open champion Emma Raducanu and four-time Grand Slam winner Naomi Osaka have previously spoken out about online abuse, leading them to delete Instagram and Twitter, now known as X, from their phones. British number two Harriet Dart has also mentioned that she only uses social media occasionally due to the prevalence of online “hate”.
With the introduction of AI, the All England Lawn Tennis Club aims to create a safer online environment for all its players.
Talk to The Guardian After her win over British number one Katie Boulter, Dart said: “I just think there’s a lot of positives to this. [social media]but also a lot of negative. I’m sure that today, if I open one of my apps, whether I win or not, I will also get a lot of hate.”
Tournament director Jamie Baker said Wimbledon had introduced social media monitoring service Threat Matrix. The system, developed by artificial intelligence company Signify Group, will also be deployed at the US Open.
Baker said: “It’s not something you would see in the public domain at all. You won’t see us shouting about it, but basically we’re scouring social media for any kind of content, which means we can get information that we didn’t have in the past.
“We don’t just rely on what the player might say about what happened to them, but also on the fact that if there is something concerning, that’s when our security team will step in and help do something about it.”
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