Social Media Check partners with Pitching In Isthmian Football League to promote better use of social media in sport

The Pitching In Isthmian League is delighted to announce an agreement with Social Media Check (SMC) to provide market leading software solutions at an exclusive rate to officials, players, coaches and supporters of Isthmian League clubs.

SMC is a fully automated risk assessment service that checks an individual’s social media history. An approved App partner of major social media platforms, it checks both public and private posts with the individual’s consent, returning a comprehensive report in under thirty minutes irrespective of the number of posts that have been generated.

Nowadays most people have a significant social media footprint and posts can say a lot about an individual’s attitude, beliefs and behaviours. High profile cases in entertainment and sport have demonstrated how damaging even historic posts can be to an individual or organisation. Many more don’t get the media spotlight but are equally costly. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly commonplace for social media conduct to be scrutinized by organisations to avoid embarrassment or even financial penalties.

“We applaud the Isthmian Football League for its proactive stance in helping to educate individuals on the appropriate use of social media and its potential impacts. It’s difficult to remember everything you might have posted on-line. We have short memories but social media doesn’t. SMC enables you to edit or delete a post that doesn’t reflect your true values today”, said Nic Whelan SMC business development director.

SMC is increasingly being used across a wide variety of markets in the public and private sector where vetting is required in the hiring process or where companies want to ensure individuals meet their corporate values. The solution has been developed using machine learning and algorithms eliminating the need for manual searching or the possibility of unconscious bias. It identifies risks across seven categories: toxic language, extreme groups, violent images, hate speech, swearing and profanity, adult images and negative sentiment.

“We see great benefits in our League promoting this service to our clubs and are pleased to be able to offer them an extremely attractive, preferential rate for their members to take advantage of this solution. It dovetails nicely with the FA’s Code of Respect campaign and we are pleased to be driving something positive towards that on-going initiative at a grass roots level. Understanding the impact of a social media post should be an important deterrent to people posting on-line abuse or racial and homophobic slurs,” said Nick Robinson, Pitching In Isthmian Football League chairman.

For more information on SMC, head here.

All clubs will be contacted with more details on Monday.

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