Racism in Sport

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:22 pm on 12 January 2021.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:22, 12 January 2021

I thank Jayne Bryant for that, and of course I'm very keen to join her in commending the way in which Mr Hewitt responded to the dreadful abuse that he received. I thought his response was remarkable, really. It was dignified and it was designed to try to put right the wrongs that had been carried out. I absolutely commend him for that. 

The general point that Jayne Bryant makes is a really important one. As I understand it, the account of the person who abused Mr Hewitt has now been cancelled. But, we've seen, not just in this instance—surely we saw it across the Atlantic in the United States recently—the harm that is done when people who abuse social media platforms go unchallenged. And I think, maybe, in some ways, we are all a bit inclined to dismiss that stuff as somehow just belonging to a fringe element, and we shouldn't get too worked up about it all. But I think the events that we saw in the United States demonstrate just how insidious that far-right occupation of social media has become, and it's here in Wales as well. It spreads the myths about coronavirus, it encourages people to believe that people who are providing public services to assist them are somehow never to be trusted and always to be suspected.

I think there is more—definitely more—that the platforms themselves need to do to challenge disinformation, to challenge people who seek to pursue their pernicious views in ways that the internet, which in other ways is such a blessing and a boon—the way it has opened up a space for people who wish to use it for entirely illegitimate and destructive purposes. And I agree with what the Member said about the need to urge them to do more to make sure that that does not happen.