A recent groundbreaking report has brought to light a concerning wave of online abuse directed at the England women’s football team during the pivotal Euro 2025 final, revealing that thousands of hostile or concerning social media posts marred their celebrated victory. This significant analysis by Moonshot, a UK-based threat monitoring service, underscores a pervasive failure within social media platforms to effectively moderate harmful content and protect athletes from widespread harassment.
Moonshot meticulously assessed an astonishing 73,400 posts across 30 different social media platforms during the final match, identifying a substantial 3,000 instances of “hostile or concerning content.” This alarming figure included a spectrum of abuses ranging from non-targeted abusive language to overt misogyny, painting a stark picture of the digital environment surrounding elite women’s sport.
Despite the clear violations of platform terms of service, the report highlights a critical systemic breakdown in content moderation. Of the 95 posts specifically reported for directly targeting individual players or head coach Sarina Wiegman, a staggering 99 percent remained online days after the final. This severe lack of action by social media companies demonstrates a significant gap in their commitment to user safety and content integrity.
The nature of the abuse detailed in the report is deeply disturbing and multifaceted. Among the 95 targeted posts, racist abuse accounted for 42 percent, followed by misogynistic sentiment at 29 percent. Additionally, sexual objectification comprised 12 percent of the abuse, with anti-LGBTQ+ abuse making up 11 percent, showcasing the diverse forms of bigotry that persist online within women’s football.
Even players with limited game time were not spared from this onslaught of online toxicity. An Arsenal forward, who entered the match in the 71st minute, became the target of 18 percent of the abusive posts during the game, with the majority being of a racist nature. This follows a broader trend, exemplified by England defender Jess Carter’s decision to step back from social media before the semi-finals due to similar experiences, prompting the team to cease taking the knee.
In response to the persistent challenges, the Lionesses squad issued a powerful statement, asserting, “It is clear we and football need to find another way to tackle racism. Those behind this online poison must be held accountable.” This collective call to action emphasizes the urgent need for robust measures and greater accountability from social media platforms to safeguard players from digital harassment and ensure player safety.
Moonshot’s findings also pointed to a worrying decline in moderation standards across major social media platforms. The report cited a stark drop in the take-down rate for violating posts on platforms like X, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, and Facebook, plummeting from 28 percent in the previous year to a mere 6 percent by July 2025, indicating a worsening trend in content enforcement.
To combat this escalating problem, Moonshot suggested concrete improvements for social media companies. They recommended enhancing “proactive identification capabilities” through automated means and ensuring that more content undergoes thorough assessment by human moderators. Furthermore, the report urged platforms to more diligently apply and enforce their own stated terms of service, rather than allowing explicit violations to persist.
While the volume of abuse during the final was lower than anticipated—attributed by Moonshot partly to England’s victory—the report unequivocally states that the figures reveal a “systemic failure in platform moderation.” This failure, particularly poignant in the context of the UK Online Safety Act, which designates much of this content as ‘priority illegal content,’ underscores the urgent need for platforms to uphold their responsibilities and foster a safer online environment for all, especially those in the public eye like our Lionesses.
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