Welcome to Stop Abusing Pros
Mission Statement - To reduce the amount of abuse, professional athletes receive online.
Guide to Prevent Abuse on Social Media
David Cohen’s Guide to Prevent Abuse on Social Media
Guide for Athletes
There are many different ways a student athlete can deal with cyberbullying
Do not overreact or underreact- It is easy to respond to the online abuser, this will most likely lead to more abuse from the person. Instead, resist the urge to respond and ignore the perpetrator.
e.g Kevin Durant responds to haters on twitter
Block the online abuser- By blocking the perpetrator, the online Abuser can no longer send you messages, and you will no longer see the account. This is a very good route.
Colts Management blocks haters at the source
Do not allow accounts of people you do not know or feel comfortable around follow you- By doing this, you are removing negativity from your timeline and denying abusers the chance to contact you.
https://www.sporttechie.com/viktre-is-the-first-ever-social-network-exclusive-to-athletes
Set account to private- By setting your account to private, only people and accounts that you trust are able to see your information, stopping Abuse on the spot.
Report malicious accounts- By reporting malicious accounts, the social media platform will examine the account and potentially ban the abuser from using the platform.
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2274020-15-sports-stars-who-dont-let-hate-affect-them#slide1
Review on Viktre
Stop Abusing Pro's Review of Social Media Platform Viktre.
Viktre’s Mission Statement is In 2014, we set out to create the world's largest global network of sports stars.
Why? Because we believe a community of athletes—past and present—working together has the power to positively IMPACT the lives of millions of people.
We believe athletes have more to offer their fans than their ability to hit a ball or score a goal.
We believe athletes have the power To Connect. To Transform. To Teach.
But athletes need a partner to organize and empower the community to realize its potential.
And that is VIKTRE's reason for existence and ultimate purpose.
Viktre is a new social media platform. Unlike many other plaforms such as Instagram, Facebook, twitter; The primary focus of Viktre is to give athletes a new way to communicate with each other with more privacy.
For the regular person, seeking to see what their favorite professional athlete is doing, they would most likely be better off staying on Instagram and other social media platforms.
I saw many similarities between Viktre and social media platform LinkedIn. Viktre stood out to me as a very professional platform. Similar to LinkedIn, the people you connect with or follow, usually have some workplace connection to the user. Unlike Instagram and Twitter, messages and angry users can not directly contact the athlete, unless the athlete follows them. One aspect that stood out to me was that on Viktre, the huge amount of followers professional athletes have on other platforms, was no longer a factor, Ezekiel Elliot has around 120 followers on the Viktre, compared to a whopping 2.5 million followers on Instagram.
I believe that more athletes should be using Viktre, not instead of other platforms, but as a more professional alternative to helping their career. Through the use of Viktre, Athletes can remove the potential of receiving hate from angry users and “trolls.” I highly recommend not only professional athletes, but also student athletes and regular people become part of the Viktre network. Student Athletes would benefit from using Viktre as a recruiting portfolio, where coaches could easily contact them and simplify the recruiting process for all sports.
I believe that Viktre could possibly be a solution to the problem of hate and abuse athletes receive online. I do not think that this will be the final solution as athletes will continue to receive hate on other platforms, however, it is most definitely a step in the right direction.
Reflection on online gambling and the connection to abuse professional athletes receive online.
In the professional tennis world, players are faced with rampant abuse on social media, win or lose. Many players and fans have pointed the finger at online gambling as the source of the abuse. Professional tennis player, Peter Polansky said "Today, I just looked briefly; I had two or three messages, like: 'How can you lose to someone ranked lower than you?' 'You should die.' 'Quit tennis.' Stuff like that." The problem with this abuse, is that it is so easy for the abuser to tweet or message an athlete with no repercussions. Yes, the athlete could block the abuser or report them, but at the end of the day, the abuser can easily make another account and continue the abuse. Another problem is that we really don’t want Twitter, Facebook, and other large social media companies to totally controlling the speech on their platforms. We don’t want these large companies controlling or prohibiting free speech just like we don’t want the government doing it either.
One possible solution to slowing down the abuse is to stop selling live scoring data to gambling companies. Another solution is to not allow betting on individual matches within a professional tennis tournament. Instead the gambler would only be allowed to bet on who would win and/or come in a second place in a tournament. Australian player, John Millman said "The bookmakers are very, very quick (to act) when they've lost money and they think someone's throwing a match. But they're not too quick to stop people, who are using their services, from sending abuse to players. It's pretty disgraceful."
There is no single solution to stopping this online abuse of professional athletes. However, in small steps a solution could possibly be reached with the help of players, sports leagues, sports agents, advertisers, social media companies, and online gambling companies. We don’t need a government solution but we do need reasonable people to get together to find solutions to this growing problem of online abuse of professional athletes, including tennis players.
Recently a Fitchburg State basketball player named Kewan Platt was caught on tape during a game elbowing a player in the face. His dirty play went viral and appeared all over the news.
Not only was he ejected from the game but he was thrown off the team and barred from campus by his college. The video of his violent act has been played over and over again on ESPN and local TV stations. It has also been reported on sports and non-sports websites (e.g., Huffington Post, USA Today, and Fox News) all over the country.
He is being attacked by the left and the right on this. He is also being attacked by sports fans and non-sports fans too. While it makes sense to see this on ESPN and the Bleacher Report, the story went viral and there was a lot of social media coverage. Thousands of people were texting and posting that video on Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram as well. Kewan Platt is now a Youtube sensation for all the wrong reasons. He will be used as an example by coaches for generations on what not to do.
I am usually against such digital attacks on players but Platt’s actions were so over the top and vicious, I think in this instance that he deserves this social media scrutiny. Of course, no one should wish him physical harm on him, but it is OK that his video has gone viral. Hopefully, it will prevent bad behavior by other players. Usually I am against viral attacks but think this one will act as a deterrent because other players don’t want to be on ESPN’s Sport Center looking like a criminal instead of an athlete. It will end their chance at professional athletic careers. It will probably hurt their ability to get other jobs as well since that video will last forever.
I have played sports all my life, including basketball and that was one of the worst cheap shots that I have ever watched. People may have fights on the court but that was not even a fight. It was the equivalent of a sucker punch. I feel bad for the player from Nichols College who was on the receiving end of that hit. He is going to be known as that guy who got elbowed in the face instead of student-athlete. People will be able to find that nasty video on YouTube forever.
I do not feel bad for Kewan Platt. As long as no one wishes or does him physical harm over this, he deserves what he gets now. There is no place in sports for people like him. I know he apologized but I think he only did it to get back on the team and college. He doesn’t seem very contrite to me. It doesn’t matter if this was his 1st offence since it was so bad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz8iHq652ys
http://www.sportingnews.com/us/ncaa-basketball/news/fitchburg-state-basketball-attack-kewan-platt-video-apology-nichols-college-nate-tenaglia/1t0f4uiufycyz1tk3ub8247ucw
Critiquing https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/cyberbullying-what-teachers-and-schools-can-do/
In Cyberbullying: What Teachers and Schools Can Do, Ms. Adams explains what teachers and schools can do to combat cyberbullying. According to the article, “42% of kids have been bullied online.” Additionally, “21% of kids have received mean or threatening e-mail or other messages.” Ms. Adams correctly believes that teachers can’t ignore it. She explains how to recognize the signs of cyberbullying by looking at the student’s emotional state. For example, do they seem depressed or overly aggressive in class. Additionally, she thinks that teachers should be asking students to report cyberbullying. Also, according to Ms. Adams, schools need to get parents involved as well. Lastly, she correctly believes that any response should be measured and not just about punishment.
It is true that there is a lot of negative comments online but it is not clear to me that it should always be considered bullying. It really comes down to intent and impact. Many of the comments on social media are made between friends without any intent to harm the other person. However, some of the stuff on social media is very offensive and clearly meant to embarrass and hurt the other person. Cyberbullying comes in many forms and I have explored this issue myself on Twitter where I go after cyberbullying of professional athletes. I have concluded that it is important to attack the Internet Trolls directly online. Otherwise they won’t stop. They tend to not like it when you attack them and stick up for the athletes.
Consequently, teachers and school administrators need to know the situation before jumping into the middle of something. They should meet with the students involved and learn more about the specific facts and circumstances before they overreact. This will likely take multiple meetings in order to learn the truth. Additionally, they need to look at the “offensive materially on-line and in context if possible. Not all negative comments are actually cyberbullying. Many comments are just inside jokes between friends with no malicious intent. There is a fine line between kidding and bullying and not all teachers may know the difference, especially if they are not active on social media. Obviously certain racial and religious slurs may be evidence of bad intent but other language may fall under a grey area. However, when the facts and purpose show that it is and it is having a very harmful effect on certain students, that may be the time for parents or teachers to step in to protect them. This will require educating parents, students, teachers, and school administrators about technology and the physical and psychological signs of cyberbullying so we can catch the bad stuff early on before it is too late.
Chicago Bears kicker Cody Parkey has been viciously attacked on social media because he missed a game winning field goal. Parker has had a rough season for the Bears due to a number of other missed kicks. During the season, a number of his kicks have hit the uprights instead of going through. The amazing part of this “missed kick” was that the kick was actually partially blocked by the Eagles according to the video clips of the game. However, no one cares. They are just blaming him for the Bears loss. I understand that Bears fans are upset but Parker does not deserve all the blame for the Bears loss. People need to stop attacking professional athletes so hard on-line. I actually post about this issue all the time. People say stuff on-line that they would never say in person. It is too easy now to hide behind screen names. As our society has become more advanced technologically, we have grown less civil to each other.
Additionally, we used to have newspapers and a handful of national networks. Now we have bloggers and Internet Trolls with nothing better to do than attack people to make a name for themselves while they are living in their mom’s basement. However, they lack editorial control which I believe has lead to a lot of people being maliciously attacked on-line. I am concerned with the psychological damage that these attacks are having on athletes. One of these days, the attacks are going to get so bad on a professional athlete that he or she is going to commit suicide. Some Troll is going to have blood on his hands. I pray that this does not ever happen but I have a feeling that it may if we don’t try and stop it now.