US tennis star Sloane Stephens says racist abuse on social media has ‘only gotten worse’

[ad_1]

Robert Prange/Getty Images

Sloane Stephens says racist abuse on social media has “worsened”.

CNN

Sloane Stephens, 2017 US Open champion and 2018 French Open runner-up, says racist abuse of her on social media has been a problem throughout her tennis career.

It never stopped. If anything, it only got worse, Stephens, who is black, told reporters after winning 6-0 6-4 in the French Open first round against No. 16 seed Karolina Pliskova. Monday.

Roland Garros announced last week that players would have their social media content moderated by an online anti-harassment and hate speech tool.

I heard about the software. I haven’t used it, said the 30-year-old American.

I obviously have a lot of banned keywords on Instagram and all that stuff, but that doesn’t stop someone from just typing an asterisk or typing it in a different way, which most of the time the software doesn’t. obviously not catch.

Jean-Francois Badias/AP

Sloane Stephens beat Karolina Pliskova in the first round of Roland-Garros.

Stephens was asked how bad the abuse was, to which she replied: I mean, obviously, when there are FBI investigations going on with what people are telling you online, it’s very severe. Obviously, it’s something I’ve dealt with my entire career.

I think like I said it has only gotten worse and people have the freedom to say and do whatever they want behind fake pages which is obviously very inconvenient.

But, yeah, it’s something I’ve had to deal with for my entire career and something I’m sure I’ll continue to deal with. That’s it.

Stephens, currently ranked 30th in the world, did not provide further details of the abuse she suffered when she spoke to reporters on Monday.

[ad_2]