The Sun comes off Twitter to fight ongoing discriminatory abuse of players on social media

THE Sun is standing united with English football this weekend in response to the ongoing discriminatory abuse of players on social media.

All of our Twitter accounts including Sport, Football, TV and Showbiz will stop posting from 3pm, Friday 30th April until 11.59pm, Monday 3rd May.    

We will also support any of our journalists who want to stand with the boycott.

We are proud to back this initiative and continue our opposition to discrimination on social media. 

The Sun has consistently taken a stand against this despicable and unacceptable behaviour, no more so than in recent weeks.

Last month we ran an exclusive front page interview with Arsenal legend Thierry Henry who took the brave decision to come off social media after growing sick and tired of social media abuse. 

The French star told Sun columnist Troy Deeney: “There is freedom of speech. But you can’t shout whatever you want in an airport, a cinema, a police station. This is my point: accountability.

“Wilfried Zaha got abused and we find out after that the kid is 12 years old. How do you have an account? How can we not know who you are behind that account?

“You have ways, come on! NHS number, National Insurance number or your passport.

“There has to be some kind of accountability there. It can’t be: “Sorry, it’s up to the user, we didn’t know. We’re going to delete his account.”

“All you have is the IP address. I take another device and open another account. How do you know the guy is over 13 and so allowed to be on social media? It’s too easy.”

Last week, after becoming the first Brit boxer to take the knee, Denzel Bentley told us: “I didn’t plan to take the knee.

“But so much was going on around the world at that time, that I felt I had to do something. My family and everyone in my area were proud.

“I grew up in an area where sometimes it did feel like every young black man who walked or dressed a certain way was getting attention from police, so it probably resonated.

“But there were still a few people on Twitter, anonymous accounts, that were negative.

“But I just ignore all of that.

“These people want to be made famous — even for something as terrible as racism.”

And earlier this month Sun Columnist Karen Brady wrote: “And there are still frequent and terrible cases of racism, coming mainly from people who hide behind their keyboards, buoyed up by their cloak of anonymity.

“Some people want to deny that racism exists, partly because they do not want to consider the possibility that they themselves are racist.

“But if people on the receiving end of abuse — including footballers — say that racism exists, then the only possible conclusion is that it does.”