Our first-of-its-kind AI model identified, confronted and changed the behaviour of fans by spotlighting hate
For the last decade, Spanish league LALIGA, and top football clubs have been fighting hate.
Players have faced a torrent of abuse in stadiums simply for doing their jobs. But the abuse isn’t just confined to the match-day crowd. It’s happening 24/7 online and at scale.
Analysis of online conversations found that a staggering 38% out of more than 8m conversations included hate speech.
Our challenge was to clean up the online conversation and create positive change.
People with a sense of impunity will post abuse and thought they could get away with it behind anonymity. Our idea was to show them that someone was watching.
We created a global first: the Monitor for the Observation of Hate in Sport (MOOD). MOOD would make hate visible, confronting society with this ugly truth and demand action.
We used AI to identify, analyse, audit and classify, in real-time, the level of hate and racism in social media conversations during each match and matchday, creating an average ‘MOOD’ score.
The more violent the language… the higher the ‘MOOD’.
This score became our calling card on social platforms, we showed those responsible that we knew what they were saying and that LALIGA was watching.
Our videos connected with young football fans by calling out xenophobic or violent behaviour, while also highlighting positive comments across LALIGA’s social channels.
Content was distributed to LALIGA´s 230m followers across 16 platforms.
MOOD became a cultural phenomenon, making the invisible visible. LALIGA sparked a national and global conversation and helped shift online behavior, proving that sport can be a powerful force for social change.
