Three black France players have been targeted on social media after their World Cup final defeat to Argentina.
Aurelien Tchouameni, Kingsley Coman, and Randal Kolo Muani, who all featured in the final, were subjected to vile messages on their accounts, as reported by The Athletic.
Tchouameni and Coman missed penalties in the shootout, while Kolo Muani missed a chance to win the game in extra-time.
The trio received messages that included banana and monkey emojis.
A spokesperson for Meta told The Athletic: ‘We don’t want racist abuse on Instagram, and we’ve removed the disgusting comments for breaking our rules.
‘We also want to help protect people from having to see this abuse in the first place, which is why we’ve developed Hidden Words, a feature that filters offensive comments and DMs, and Limits, which hides comments and DMs from people who don’t follow you, or only followed you recently.
‘We’re in touch with players and their teams directly, to offer them support and help them turn on these tools.’
Real Madrid’s Tchouameni has limited comments on his Instagram posts. Kolo Muani of Eintracht Frankfurt has completely turned them off. Coman, of Bayern Munich, however, left his comment section open.
