Stats Perform, a provider of sports tech data and AI technology, and Signify Group, a British ethical data science company, on Thursday said they have formed a partnership to bring a social media abuse monitoring service to the sports market.
The two companies said social media abuse has become one of the most serious problems facing sport, with calls from fans, players, teams, leagues and even governments to take action.
Stats Perform said it recognizes the sports integrity field needs to expand to include an increased focus on this issue, especially given its impact on sport and its participants. As a result, Stats Perform’s Integrity Unit will be partnering with Signify to address the issue head on, leveraging AI and machine learning to monitor and identify abuse in realtime.
Stats Perform said it will work with Signify to expand access to Signify’s Threat Matrix, a proprietary service using AI technology to detect online abuse at scale, by focusing on providing sports industry stakeholders, such as rights holders, teams, player associations, international federations and governing bodies, with the service to unmask abusers and identify trends, tactics and technology used to send hate online.
The two companies said those involved in sport need support and protection to help identify, deflect and report abuse. They said Threat Matrix offers this service, stripping anonymity from protagonists and ensuring abusers do not go unpunished.
According to Signify, Threat Matrix provides proactive monitoring and analysis of millions of open source social media posts across multiple platforms. Service capabilities include images and emoji recognition, as well as keywords, phrases, and a long list of abusive words, terms and profanities in multiple languages. The company said this service has been developed over the last 2 years and is built on an evidence based and defensible expert approach to the screening and assessment of inappropriate, threatening and unwanted communications directed at public figures.
Signify noted it has conducted projects across multiple sports, including athletics, basketball, cricket and football. The company has run international open source investigations for FIFA and is working with English Premier League clubs to protect players from online hate.
The Professional Footballer’s Association (PFA) partnered with Signify to carry out a study into online abuse. The report, analyzing 6 million tweets over the 2020-21 season, has led to the removal of thousands of posts and accounts from social media platforms, while initiating club sanctions and criminal investigations.
The two companies said Threat Matrix joins Stat Perform’s existing portfolio of integrity services offerings, including betting market monitoring, performance integrity analysis, intelligence and investigations that already are used by some of the world’s leading rights holders such as The Championships, Wimbledon, as well as La Liga and MLS.
“Our Integrity work at Stats Perform focuses on the protection of sport, and that includes athletes and other participants,” Carl Mergele, Stats Perform CEO, said in a statement. “Sports are under increasing pressure from fans and sponsors to demonstrate moral and social responsibility and our partnership with Signify Group will see the deployment of game-changing AI to protect players, athletes and officials from online racist, homophobic, sexist and other abuse. We are very proud to bring this offering to our clients and it blends perfectly with our approach to sport integrity and our wider ESG commitments.”
Jonathan Hirshler, Signify CEO, added, “We are delighted to be partnering with Stats Perform to offer Threat Matrix to their unrivalled portfolio of clients. The combination of Stats Perform’s sports industry expertise and Threat Matrix’s bespoke AI-powered proactive monitoring and analysis capabilities provides sports stakeholders with a solution to help protect their athletes and staff from online threat and discriminatory abuse.”
