Report: X algorithms amplified racist abuse of England players during 2026 World Cup

Racist abuse directed at England footballers on the platform X was amplified by recommender algorithms during the 2026 World Cup, a report by the activist group Hope Not Hate found. The researchers analysed more than 300,000 posts on X and identified over 5,500 explicitly racist posts targeting England players.

Hope Not Hate argues that X’s recommendation system pushed toxic content into millions of feeds because posts that provoke anger and outrage generate greater interaction. The report states that posts generating strong reactions keep people on the platform for longer and can ultimately help drive advertising revenue. Patrik Hermansson, senior researcher at Hope Not Hate, said: "X is actually benefiting from this hate." X has been approached for comment.

The analysis identified individual players who were disproportionately targeted: Jude Bellingham was the most targeted player, while Bukayo Saka and Kobbie Mainoo experienced the highest proportion of racist posts relative to the total number of mentions. The report also notes that Djed Spence, who has converted to Islam in recent years, was subjected to a distinct stream of anti-Muslim abuse.

Researchers also examined how abusive content concentrated in the replies to high-profile posts on the platform. In response to the study the Football Association said: "all players have the right to play without being exposed to hateful, discriminatory and distressing content online" and added: "We want service providers to take all of the necessary steps to create a safer life online for everyone."

Hope Not Hate criticises current responses to online abuse as focusing too heavily on actions taken after a racist post has been seen, such as players blocking users, reporting messages and platforms suspending accounts. Hermansson said: "X doesn't take racism seriously enough," and added: "We've seen it for a number of years now. There is no change or improvement." He also told BBC Sport: "They show up in the recommendation feed - they are not obscure corners of this website, they are front and centre. "That's a choice it doesn't have to make and yet it does".

The group proposed specific technical and regulatory remedies, including downranking posts that attract large volumes of abuse so they are recommended to fewer people. Before the new Premier League season Hope Not Hate called on Ofcom to use its existing powers under the Online Safety Act more effectively, to outlaw algorithms fuelling abuse, and to designate major sporting events as "high risk" requiring platforms to deploy strict safety-by-design rules, remove abuse proactively and downrank rapidly escalating viral hate through algorithmic adjustments.

Hope Not Hate described its data-collection and analysis process in the report: it collected posts mentioning England players by name or X handle and replies to player and team accounts, plus posts mentioning Team England and related keywords, then filtered out irrelevant posts. The researchers used artificial intelligence trained on human-labelled examples to sort the data, identified different forms of racism as well as "far-right narratives" and hateful slogans, checked samples manually for accuracy, and counted posts as abuse on a yes-or-no basis rather than grading severity.

Ofcom responded to the report by saying: "We're pushing tech firms hard to make their services safer, and we'll be holding them to account if they don't." The regulator also cited a new partnership with police and footballing bodies established before the World Cup to tackle online abuse.