USWNT received greatest amount of online abuse during 2023 World Cup, per FIFA report

The United States women's national soccer team was the team that received the most online abuse during the 2023 World Cup, FIFA and FIFPRO reported in their Social Media Protection Service analysis released on Monday.

The report found that the USWNT, who was playing for a third straight title, was the recipient of the greatest amount of harmful content with nearly 4,000 verified abusive posts or comments directed at them. The abuse was primarily politically motivated. The number of hurtful posts reached a peak on Aug. 6 when the USWNT was eliminated from the World Cup in the Round of 16.

"The profile of the USA squad (coming into the tournament as winners of the previous two tournaments), made them a target for online abuse," the report said. "This was heightened by the perception of players not singing the National Anthem being called out as unpatriotic and anti-American."

A majority of the USWNT squad did not sing the "Star-Spangled Banner" throughout the World Cup.

This summer's World Cup was the final time Megan Rapinoe appeared in the tournament. She was among the first athletes to kneel during the national anthem in 2016 as a show of solidarity with former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and the fight for racial justice.

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The report noted that two unnamed players received the most abuse online. The Washington Post said that the players are Rapinoe and Argentina's Yamila Rodríguez.

The Social Media Protection Service report analyzed 5.1 million social media posts across Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. The service monitored the social media accounts of the players, coaches, teams and tournament and 103,000 posts and comments were flagged by the service's artificial intelligence program as harmful and reviewed by a human committee. More than 7,000 of those posts were reported to the respective social media platforms as abusive. Homophobic content made up 20.4 percent and sexist content made up 13.7 percent of the posts and comments found.

The players in the 2023 World Cup were 29 percent more likely to be targets of online abuse than last year's men's tournament.

FIFA's Social Media Protection Service was established in 2022 to prevent online abuse and monitor social media activity. The project has been implemented for eight FIFA tournaments, including the men's World Cup last year.