• AT 3pm on April 30, owing to “ongoing and sustained discriminatory abuse”, English Premier League football clubs switched off social media for four days.

On July 11, following a penalty shoot-out, England lost the final of the UEFA Euro 2020 championship.

Using social media racial abuse was heaped on the players unfortunate to have missed penalties.

Outrage was expressed but no switch-off and certainly not from politicians who, at no personal or career risk, had earlier used social media to condemn the proposed European Super League.

An opportunity to show that the “people’s game” is safe in their hands: an easy win requiring no effort or sacrifice.

I don’t use social media but understand that its only product is participation: numbers turned into revenue.

The more people and the more time spent the more data that can be harvested and the greater number of eyes that can be sold to advertisers. And the result, more money.

Maybe naïve but I would have thought that a boycott by advertisers not wishing their product to be tainted, and by the public not wishing to be fellow travellers, would kill off abuse in a heartbeat.

If it was in a newspaper you’d stop taking it; similarly with magazines. If it was on television you’d switch off; similarly radio. So why not social media?

Any other way renders participants part of the problem that causes them so much righteous anguish.

STEPHEN SOUTHAM
Mildmay Grove North, N1