The opening segment of the IRFU’s latest offering of Connected to Camp – Episode 4 to be precise – on the irishrugby.ie website initially focuses on the jersey presentation to Edwin Edogbo in a crammed room in the Shelbourne Hotel, with all backroom staff present, two nights before his debut against Italy last Saturday.
Manager Mick Kearney initiated proceedings by revealing Edogbo is the 1,180th Irish international as his mother Patience, older brother Moses, older sister Favour and younger brother Seán enter the room to see Craig Casey present his Munster and Irish team-mate with his jersey.
It was almost comforting to realise it’s not just with us in the media that Edogbo is a man of few words. “Cheers lads,” is all he says as he gives a thumbs up and smiles to those in the room. Later in the episode, the camera follows Edogbo as he meets his family at the side of the pitch and then poses for photographs.
One of the abiding, most emotional memories of the day was the palpable warmth in the huge ovation afforded Edogbo in the 70th minute. And maybe that’s where we should leave it, except that when the IRFU posted their congratulations to Edogbo after the game, they were horrified to discover some racist comments underneath.
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Meanwhile, Michael Corcoran, the RTÉ radio commentator, revealed on Monday that he retweeted a video after the game which the IRFU had posted of Edogbo singing the national anthem, at the end of which the Cobh Pirates player gives a relieved wink towards the camera.
Corcoran awoke on Sunday morning and was astonished to find some abhorrent comments towards him and Edogbo. He complained about the racist innuendo in some of the posts, which he has described as “disgusting”, directly to the X platform.
He received the following reply: “After reviewing the available information, we’ve determined that there were no violations of the X rules in the content that you reported. We appreciate your help and encourage you to reach out again in the future if there’s any potential violations.”
Just not good enough, but hardly surprising.
The IRFU said it was also investigating “cowardly” racist abuse directed at Edogbo on their X and Instagram accounts.
“We’re aware of some targeted abuse online in recent days and continue to work with Signify [a data technology company which specialises in protecting against online abuse] and the relevant authorities to report it.
“We will also continue to fully support all affected by the cowardly actions of a minority and investigations are under way alongside our partners Signify.
“It is clear that racist abuse has no place in Irish society and the IRFU has a zero-tolerance policy towards racism of any form.”
No doubt it is a minority, and quite probably not all of these reprehensible racists are even Irish. But therein lies the rub. The social media platforms are set up in such a way as to enable them to remain anonymous, not least as this increases their profit margins.
Earlier this year, Swim Ireland became the latest national sports governing body to discontinue its use of the social media platform X, the platform formerly known as Twitter and owned by Elon Musk, due to a “lack of adequate controls and the current implementation of Grok AI”. This followed the decision by Paralympics Ireland taking the step to discontinue posting a week previously.
In the UK, Sport England indefinitely suspended its engagement with X, after what it described as the “abhorrent outputs” associated with Grok, and because the social media platform “increasingly promotes and monetises an environment that is hostile to women and girls”.
How many expressions of outrage have there been now over racist or misogynistic content on X, or other social media outlets?
The platforms can condone racist content on their platforms all they want, but until such time as they make it compulsory for all users to supply their identification and thus can no longer hide behind the cloak of anonymity, the truth is that they facilitate racism.
The IRFU has more than 800,000 followers on X, albeit this constitutes a drop from the 1 million-plus followers the Union used to have when Twitter was in its pomp. And one understands this has a huge and direct reach to Irish rugby’s supporter base.
Yet while it’s all very well and good the IRFU “investigating” racist comments, and even expressing their abhorrence of them, the most effective way for the Union and others to make their feelings known to X is to simply close down their accounts and stop using it as a platform.
