Austin Healey and Ugo Monye detail online abuse #DrawTheLine
NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE, ENGLAND - MARCH 03: Newcastle Falcons Director of Rugby Dean Richards (R) and pundit Austin Healey in discussion prior to the Gallagher Premiership Rugby match between Newcastle Falcons and Worcester Warriors at Kingston Park on March 03, 2019 in Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)
This weekend will see rugby unions and professional clubs boycott social media channels in a campaign levelled at platforms to do more to prohibit flagrant abuse and discrimination online.
Led by Premiership TV broadcast partner BT, the #DrawTheLine campaign has been endorsed by all Premiership clubs, plus those in the Championship, PRO14 and Premier 15s.
While the RFU, WRU and Scottish Rugby have all adopted a #StopOnlineAbuse campaign and will boycott their social media channels as of 3pm on Friday to 23:59 on Monday.
The Draw The Line campaign aims to address the problem of online abuse by raising awareness of the impact of online hate and advocating change.
It revealed the true societal scale of social media abuse through new YouGov research which revealed over five million people have received online abuse in the last 12 months.
BT commentators Austin Healey and Ugo Monye detailed the extreme abuse they have faced.
