After Henry’s strike, UK ministers vow to help tackle racist trolls

The UK Government is set to launch harsher punishments to discourage online racist trolls from attacking players.

Racist abuse has become rampant and it forced former Arsenal legend, Thierry Henry, to delete his social media accounts recently.

The Gunners’ legend says he would only return if things change and the platform owners do more to hold those responsible accountable.

Sun Sports is reporting that Sports Minister Nigel Huddleston joined a call with the campaign group Kick it Out and police to help end the abuse once and for all.

It says they discussed the measures that the platform owners can take to ensure the keyboard warriors are brought to justice so that others would be discouraged.

This is being done just before they launch harsher penalties in the Online Safety Bill.

Before deleting his social media accounts for good, Henry put out a long statement with a part of it via Sky Sports reading: 

“From tomorrow [Saturday] morning I will be removing myself from social media until the people in power are able to regulate their platforms with the same vigour and ferocity that they currently do when you infringe copyright.

“The sheer volume of racism, bullying and resulting mental torture to individuals is too toxic to ignore. There has to be some accountability. It is far too easy to create an account, use it to bully and harass without consequence and still remain anonymous.

“Until this changes, I will be disabling my accounts across all social platforms. I’m hoping this happens soon.”