After years in the making, the Online Safety Act (the “OSA”) has come into force after receiving Royal Assent on 26 October 2023 (as discussed in our blog here).
Amidst the proliferation of social media use, there has been a worrying increase in the levels of abuse that players, athletes, officials, managers, coaches and other individuals connected with the sports industry are facing. Notably, for the 2022/2023 football season, Kick it Out, an organisation which campaigns against discrimination in football, reported a 279% increase in reports of online abuse.[1] To give a sense of the scale of and spikes in the abuse that those connected with the sports industry can face, the abusive comments on Bruno Fernandes’ social media pages following a penalty miss, increased 3,000% that day and he continued to receive hateful messages every hour for two weeks following the miss.[2]
Given this context, it comes as little surprise that sports organisations such as the English Football Association (“FA”), Kick it Out, English Football League (EFL), Premier League and the Professional Footballers Association (PFA) worked closely with the Government on the OSA to help tackle discrimination against individuals online.[3] Whilst online abuse of footballers often hits the headlines given the sports’ widespread popularity, the issues are unfortunately commonplace across the sporting landscape. The recent Rugby World Cup highlighted incidents of abuse not only targeted at players, such as Tom Curry in the wake of England’s semi-final with South Africa[4], but also abuse of, and threats to, a number of officials[5]. A further example includes reports of female tennis players facing online threats on social media from gamblers.[6]
If enforced effectively, it is hoped the OSA could be a significant step forward in improving the online protection of those in sport as well as society more broadly. However, as the joint statement issued by the FA warns, there is still a lot to be done before real change is likely to be seen.[7] Despite the OSA being over 250 pages long, the majority of its substantive provisions are not yet in force and require implementation via codes and secondary legislation.