Basketball Australia joins with online safety platform to combat social media abuse

BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — Basketball Australia and its men’s and women’s professional leagues announced on Wednesday an online safety platform to help athletes and teams protect themselves from social media abuse.

The move couldn’t come any sooner for Scott Roth, a former NBA player and assistant coach with several teams including the Toronto Raptors and Detroit Pistions.

The Cleveland, Ohio-born Roth has coached the Tasmania JackJumpers men’s National Basketball League team since the club’s inaugural season in 2021, leading the team to a league championship in 2024.

This season, Roth delivered an emotional post-game news conference where he talked about distressing abuse that had been directed at players and their families for weeks. Roth said the issue escalated when a person wished a miscarriage upon a player’s pregnant wife.

“This last 24 hours have been quite emotional for our group … very emotional, and we have a lot of distraught players and family members and wives and spouses and children,” Roth said. “We have been attacked brutally through social media, to the point where it’s ugly. The NBL must do something.”

Basketball Australia and the NBL and Women’s National Basketball League heeded Roth’s advice. It will now take advantage of a partnership with Social Protect, providing players, coaches and officials with access to tools and education designed to monitor, detect and delete online harassment and abuse across social media platforms.

Basketball Australia said Social Protect’s “real-time platform” automatically identifies and removes abusive comments across several sites including Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok by tracking more than two million abusive words and phrases in more than 100 languages.

Other sports have enlisted help in an attempt to cut down on social media abuse, including the ATP on behalf of tennis players. And in August, soccer officials in Germany announced an investigation into two incidents in which players were allegedly subjected to racist abuse by people in the stadium.

Jennie Sager, chief executive of Australia’s WNBL, said it was important to create an online environment where athletes, especially females, can express themselves knowing they have strong, proactive support.

“Female athletes are targeted with nearly 20% more online abuse than their male peers, and 85% say it impacts their well-being,” Sager said in the Basketball Australia statement. “That’s a reality we refuse to ignore. Our partnership with Social Protect is a decisive step in standing up for our players. It gives them the tools, protection and confidence they deserve, so they can own their voice online, and not be silenced by those hiding behind keyboards.”

Canadian-born Australian player Dejan “DJ” Vasiljevic played college basketball for the Miami Hurricanes before joining the Sydney Kings in 2020. He won two NBL championships with the Kings in 2022 and 2023.

He’s experienced regular social media abuse and wants it to stop.

“The fact that some people think it’s OK to jump on social media and to say to us directly . . . ‘go kill yourself’ shows that people live a very sad life,” the 28-year-old Vasiljevic said.

Roth says the abuse is “beyond crossing the line.”

“We have now family members scared to go outside the house, kids reading what they’re reading,” he says. “We deserve better.”

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