Millwall boss Gary Rowett: Social media companies need to take greater responsibility

Gary Rowett has called for social media companies to take “more responsibility” ahead of English football’s blackout of all those platforms this weekend.

All the major organisations – including the Premier League and EFL – have joined together to not post or upload content on social media over the bank holiday weekend.

The move is aimed at hitting out at racial and discriminatory abuse on social media and has got the support of all EFL and Premier League clubs.

“I’ve never done it [used social media],” said Rowett. “I’ve never really embraced it. I can understand how it is used positively – all the benefits for young and old keeping in contact with people, some of the magical things you can use it for.

“But people say things on social media they wouldn’t say to your face if you met them on the street. It creates a lot of negativity. For every two or three positive comments, you end up getting seven or eight negative ones – it’s a little bit of a pack mentality that people then jump on the back of…and it spirals.

“It’s like anything, we’ll all read good things about ourselves but as soon as you read a bad thing then it is not quite so nice. If those comments are abusive and of a racial nature – or any that are discriminatory – then it is not what we want.

“Social media is a very easy tool to be anonymous and abuse people. And, for that, I choose not to use it. Everyone is trying to make a stance, rightly so. The big companies need to take more responsibility and have a system where they can’t be anonymous.

“It should be like setting up a bank account, that you have to give address and details. It is a platform for freedom of speech, but it’s got to the point where if it is being used in the wrong way there has to be some kind of monitoring system.”