Using social media can be a pretty toxic experience, and as statistics show, that toxicity is overwhelming for women on social media sites.

A recent survey commissioned by Amnesty International UK, revealed that three out of every four Gen Z social media users witnessed misogynistic content, with half encountering that same content on a weekly basis.

In the world of sports, especially women’s sports, that toxic content can make it impossible for players and team principals to connect with fans to spread the love of the game.

To address that issue in Calgary at the city’s only women’s professional football club, the Wild FC have partnered up with Edmonton-based Areto Labs to use their AI-powered content moderation technology.

“It’s a huge priority for us, and, and to be quite frank, I never knew this technology existed, so we were over the moon,” said Lara Murphy, CEO of the Calgary Wild FC.

“It removes hate speech and spam, fraud, and illegal streams. It does all of this in real time, so it creates that safe space for players online and it enables us and the players and as an organization to dull and cut out the trolls.”

She said that because of comments made, high-performance athletes—especially women—are forced to shut down chats or their social media profiles to prevent being exposed to toxic comments, hate speech in particular.

“Allowing the players to have their chats open helps them engage and helps them grow their audience. There’s one example that they’re working with an athlete where her her sponsorships went up 300 per cent after she incorporated this technology,” Murphy said.

World leading technology comes back home to Alberta

Kasey Machin, co-founder and Chief Operations Officer for Areto Labs, said that the company has been fortunate to work with three of the top five professional football leagues in Europe, along with leagues like the NHL, MLS, WBNA, and NBA in North America.

That includes luminaries in the football space like AC Milan.

Getting to work with her hometown club, however, was really special, said Machin.

“The three founders, we all worked together. We organized and created a nonprofit organization to increase gender equity in public office, and part of my work was to recruit women to run. Almost always, they would say that online abuse, the hit against being in office this way, and dissuaded women from running,” she said.

“Women are really disproportionately impacted by online abuse and obviously targeted by online abuse.”

She said that it felt almost full circle getting to bring the product back to Calgary.

Murphy said having the ability to connect with fans, while still protecting players, meant that there could be engagement with the Wild FC in a way that protected both parties.

She said because of the way that the system works, hateful and harmful comments are removed in real time, preserving fans from having to see those comments as well.

“Athletes don’t have to choose between using their own voice and protecting their safety, and neither should the fans in any of those spaces,” Murphy said.