THE IRFU SAID it is investigating the \u201ccowardly\u201d online racist abuse of Cork man Edwin Edogbo after his Ireland debut against Italy on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old Cobh native came off the bench for the closing 10 minutes of Ireland\u2019s win over the Italians, receiving a huge roar from the Aviva Stadium crowd as he came on for his first cap.<\/p>\n
However, some of the IRFU\u2019s social media posts about Edogbo attracted racist comments. The union had to close the comments on a number of its posts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re aware of some targeted abuse online in recent days and continue to work with Signify and the relevant authorities to report it,\u201d said an IRFU spokesperson.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will also continue to fully support all affected by the cowardly actions of a minority and investigations are underway alongside our partners Signify.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is clear that racist abuse has no place in Irish society and the IRFU has a zero tolerance policy towards racism of any form.\u201d<\/p>\n
Signify\u2019s \u2018Threat Matrix\u2019 service uses a combination of AI technology and human tracking to \u201cdetect targeted abusive and threatening content across all major social media platforms\u201d.<\/p>\n
The IRFU said the service \u201cassesses and investigates the most serious content which will provide the IRFU, provinces and RPI with actionable evidence for a range of sanctions, including venue and ticket bans, as well as reporting the most serious cases to police\u201d.<\/p>\n