New Delhi: Pixstory, the US based, India-inspired social media platform, today announced a partnership with Arsenal FC, counted among the top football clubs in the world to tackle online toxicity or hate.
The fast growing social media app, Pixstory, is being driven by the Gandhian ideas. NBA legend and LA Lakers star Dwight Howard is an early investor in it. The app is attracting a lot of interest from top global sports teams. Arsenal is the third major European football club after Juventus and Paris Saint Germain Feminine to collaborate with the platform.
Arsenal FC has partnered with Pixstory as part of efforts to reduce abuse and hate speech in online fan interactions. The club joins the platform today under the handle @Arsenal. Together with Pixstory, Arsenal will take part in campaigns aimed at creating a sustainable internet free of toxicity.
Juliet Slot, Arsenal’s Chief Commercial Officer, went on to say: “At Arsenal we’re committed to fighting the toxicity and abuse that has become all too common on social media. We’ve done a lot of work internally to protect our players from harmful abuse and we already work with external partners to help us take meaningful action against abusers.
Appu Esthose Suresh, the founder of Pixstory, said: “The unprecedented level of hate and misinformation amplified by social media is the largest threat to humanity. Pixstory models itself along the lines of clean energy to build an alternative on the internet, let’s call it Clean Social. We want to leverage the power of sports to bring in social change. We are excited to find a partner in Arsenal which has a proven track record of proactively fighting hate and misinformation.”
“Now, we’re delighted to take another step forward with our bold and exciting partnership with Pixstory. When used in the right way, social media can be a wonderful place for supporter engagement and information sharing. Together we’ll campaign to make social media a more enjoyable and safer space for everyone.”
Pixstory’s USP is zero tolerance for online toxicity. Its ecosystem is designed to actively reduce polarisation, as well as disincentivise hate and misinformation. This is done through verification and integrity scores for accounts, ‘challenge and support’ functions that allow users to question or validate posts with rationale, and an AI system that detects context-based hate speech through a constantly evolving process.
The app aims to be an ethical social media platform by prioritising people over profit. It doesn’t collect or sell user data, but it retains the user experience with strong checks and balances through design and tech innovations.
Arsenal already works with technology company Signify whose sophisticated Threat Matrix technology helps the club identify abusers, including those who send it anonymously. This helps the club take meaningful action against those who can be identified, including sanctioning supporters and escalating incidents to the social media companies and relevant authorities.
