'People vomit hatred unchecked' - Eni Aluko blasts social media companies after suffering vile sexist abuse from unemployed ex-Man City player Joey Barton

Aluko has been at the end of a torrent of abuse directed at her following criticism from ex-footballer Joey Barton. She revealed to the BBC that black women, including herself, are systematically targeted for abuse on social media platforms like X. She highlighted the case of one troll who admitted to sharing hateful comments about women like Aluko because they are perceived as easy targets. Despite repeatedly reporting Barton's posts to X, Aluko revealed that the platform took no action against the offender.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Why Do You Hate Me? podcast, Aluko said: "Online abuse from someone with millions of followers feels like the world's caving on you. This is a societal issue where we have a platform [X] that is allowing people to vomit their hatred unchecked. And then on top of that, I think there is an intention to monetise and incite more hatred to promote a podcast."

Barton's posts, which likened Aluko and another female pundit, Lucy Ward, to"Fred and Rose West of football commentary", a notorious married duo of serial killers, received undue prominence due to Barton's verified status, indicated by the blue tick. Aluko's employer, ITV, condemned the abuse, but it persisted, which has prompted Aluko to pursue a libel claim against Barton.

Aluko revealed that she wanted to flee her house when Barton first initiated the attacks.

"I started to get quite anxious because you get that feeling of being in a fishbowl. Everybody is sort of thinking, talking about you and reading the horrific stuff that's been said about you," Aluko said.

"I'm not going to leave my house. I'm going to disguise myself when I go and get milk from the supermarket. Why should I have to do that? But this is the real-life impact of online abuse and nobody's stopping it."

This incident underscores broader societal issues surrounding online abuse and the need for social media platforms to take more proactive measures to combat hate speech and protect users. However, UK Sports Minister Stuart Andrew labelled Barton's comments as "dangerous" and assured that the government is looking into the matter with grave seriousness and could take action against the offender.