Thierry Henry leaves social media in protest of racist abuse of athletes

Former Arsenal and France striker Thierry Henry announced his decision to remove himself from social media in protest of racism and bullying across platforms.

The Frenchman called on companies to “regulate their platforms with the same vigour and ferocity that they currently do when you infringe copyright” in a farewell post to his 2.3 million Twitter followers.

“It is far too easy to create an account, use it to bully and harass without consequence and still remain anonymous,” he said.

“The sheer volume of racism, bullying and resulting mental torture to individuals is too toxic to ignore.”

Back in July 2020, the Premier League winner took a knee for eight minutes and 46 seconds ahead of a Montreal Impact MLS game with New England Revolution in a stand against racism following the death of George Floyd.

Twitter has said it is “committed to Kick It Out’s initiative to tackle online hate, and look forward to continuing these discussions and developing solutions with our partners in football”.

Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, said it took action on 6.6 million pieces of hate speech between October and December last year and will “take tougher action when we become of aware of people breaking our rules in DMs.”