Social media\u2019s role has become fantastic and toxic in the same breathe, according to Chad Townsend who has issued some sobering advice for young NRL players and athletes on how to handle the hate and trolls.<\/p>\n
The 34-year-old, who announced his retirement form NRL in July this year, is a long-time vocal advocate for highlighting the dangers and pitfalls of social media and ensuring athletes are equipped to handle what comes with having an online presence.<\/p>\n
No stranger to being on the receiving end of hateful abuse, Townsend has repeatedly called for social media giants to be on the hook for more accountability about what happens on their platforms.<\/p>\n
Offering advice and some actions people can take to better protect themselves based on his experience, he joined Andrew Voss as co-host on SEN 1170 Breakfast and highlighted the evolution of social media since he started playing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I made my debut Instagram and Facebook was only just beginning,\u201d he said. \u201cSocial media is fantastic in one breath and toxic in another. You’re so accessible and everyone has an opinion.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing I learned when I was at the Warriors; we had a workshop day and the head of Twitter came to see us. He spoke about settings you can use to change, block or mute certain words.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll platforms have this. His advice to us was to mute the words you can think of. The words starting with F, C, or maybe pass, catch or kick. Anything you think people might use against you.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe if someone ran a comment with one of those words on my page, you see it there, I don\u2019t get notified of it and no one else sees it. You\u2019re sitting there thinking I\u2019ve written this comment but no one else can see it.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe also said turn direct messages off. I only turned them on when I retired. When someone wants to contact me, if they need to they can without a DM. We have seen how vile it gets when for example multis don\u2019t come off or the racism is disgusting.\u201d<\/p>\n
During his time with Cronulla Sharks, Townsend spearheaded advice sessions with other players to show them how they could limit the abuse coming their way.<\/p>\n
His then teammate Aaron Woods quit his platforms because of abuse he copped from people gambling.<\/p>\n
So what would he say to 18-year-olds coming into the game?<\/p>\n
\u201cSocial media is now a way of life,\u201d Townsend continued. \u201cIt will be part of my kid\u2019s lives but how can I protect them but be understanding of its role?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the way we communicate these days. I\u2019m ok with the banter and the talking a bit of smack, but the vile bullying, from people at school or towards athletes etc, I\u2019m not ok with that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you have a fake account, the stuff people write they need to give themselves an upper cut.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always used social media. I try to use it to my advantage. Players use social to give fans an insight. If you want to bag them then they will go back into their shell.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say to young players, mute and block the words you need to and don\u2019t engage with the negativity. Don\u2019t like it, don\u2019t reply to it, totally ignore it.<\/p>\n
\u201cEngage with the positive. Stay away from then negative. If you reply, they will screenshot it, they share it with friends.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Social media\u2019s role has become fantastic and toxic in the same breathe, according to Chad Townsend who has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-230925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}