FIFA identified 89,000 offensive posts on social media during the group stage of the World Cup, an alarming increase compared to 2022.

The FIFA team responsible for monitoring online content reported that during the group stage of the World Cup, 89,000 offensive posts were identified, which represents a 13-fold increase compared to the 2022 edition.

This analysis was conducted by the Social Media Protection Service (SMPS), which evaluated over six million posts, finding that 11% of them contained racial abuse. The proportion of racially motivated attacks increased by 3% compared to the previous edition. SMPS uses advanced technology and human moderation to detect and block discriminatory content. In total, 225,000 posts were identified for review, and 1,000 accounts were reported for further investigation. The expanded tournament format, with 48 teams, contributed to the increase in the volume of content analyzed. Additionally, FIFA collected evidence for legal authorities, identifying over 100 cases for possible legal action.