Brazilian football legends launch AI-powered ‘anti-hate’ platform

Brazilian ex-footballers Roberto Carlos and Gilberto Silva have announced the launch of an AI-powered “abuse free” social media platform, Striver.

Revealed at the Web Summit conference in Lisbon, the former Real Madrid and Arsenal defenders and shareholders of the app, took to the stage with Striver’s CEO Tim Chase to reveal its new application specifically for footballers and their fans.

“The platform removes hate,” explained Chase in a press conference at the event, “and we also have the tools to make it super easy for fans and players to engage with each other.”

For instance, if Carlos chooses to post his famous free kick to the platform with a video explaining how it’s done, fans can post video responses to it to which Carlos can “feature” with a press of a button.

That means the video is displayed on Carlos’ feed for all his followers to see.

In terms of online abuse, the former defensive midfielder and Arsenal player Silva went on to describe how social media abuse affects players’ mental health, and how it takes a toll on their work and performance.

“It’s only a minority of people who are racist,” Silva said, “but somebody has to take responsibility for [monitoring] that.”

“Week in, week out, this kind of situation happened, and nothing ever happened,” he added.

Chase, who also founded the fan and brand engagement app, TruChallenge, added that Striver uses AI to monitor and filter content before it goes live so that that footballer will never see it.

He claims big tech platforms such as TikTok, X, and YouTube can’t currently offer this AI filtering ability because the sheer volume of content that is uploaded by the minute means that it would slow down a user’s ability to post instantly.

Because Striver has been designed as an app purely for footballer and their fans, this should not be an issue, Chase added.

The app does hope to grow to cover more sports and their players, however, as well as musicians, and then to become a general social media platform, “eventually”.

“We want people to be happy,” added former Real Madrid and Inter Milan left-back Carlos. “We have the possibility to make good change.”

In September, Heineken and UK tech firm, Arwen, joined forces to launch an AI-powered online moderation tool to protect the fans from offensive social media content.

As well as combating hate, football is also looking to ramp up its cyber security defences, with clubs such as Southampton FC forging partnerships with cyber security firms.

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