U.S. tennis star Sloane Stephens shares abusive social media posts

Name and shame these abusers, cowards hiding behind anonymity.

or maybe just not use social media anymore? i will never in my life understand the need for twitter.

Why do we even care any more. This is so commonplace and unstoppable. Unless we close down social media.

Yes, black people should just hide. Don’t leave the house. That would solve the problem.

take a chill pill & put away your cape.

he was talking about everybody (of any colour or race) getting off social media

This is has been going on since the advent of social media. Best not to pay attention, best not to read the garbage. Better yet not to patronize social media.

Yes, black people should just hide. Don’t leave the house. That would solve the problem.

Heres a newsflash for you: its not a racial thing, however much you want to make it so.

I don't equate her plight to Naomi Osaka, who has created her own problems.

I feel bad for Stephens, she needs to quit social media. The message of harassment and mental health issues gets diluted, though, when it occurs so often, it becomes noise.

Tennis players have become the emotional stressed out poster children for sports. They're brittle, sensitive and tempestuous.

It's to the point I wonder if tennis causes mental disorders.

Abuse is a common currency on social media. Pitiful. However the constant media attention to this or that person receiving abuse and death threats and similar is silly. Just plays into the desire of those losers who send this rubbish for a thrill of publicity or similar.

sad that it happens, but sports stars (anyone famous really) needs two accounts, their public face and a private one just for friends. NEVER read the hate and spite on the public one, post and run. Put your soundbites, brand messages, training videos etc out there, but don't dive into the cesspit of the comments.

Interact with your friends on the private one. Social media has given everyone - trolls and the benevolent direct access to famous people, they have to ask themselves- is interacting with this unfiltered seething mass of humanity is worth it? is the sweet message from a young fan worth the stress of the hate from a keyboard warrior?

As @carcharodon and @lostrune2 indicated, fine, maybe she is contracted to have a social media account, but why does she need to read it? Especially these young ladies have a whole team of assistants (coaches, trainers, diet specialists) - why not have someone whose sole job is to manage the social media account?

Yesterday, Caucasian female tennis player Shelby Rogers said this about social media after her 4th-round loss

"US Open: Shelby Rogers says she must contend with death threats on social media following Emma Raducanu defeat"

https://www.skysports.com/tennis/news/32833/12400981/us-open-shelby-rogers-says-she-must-contend-with-death-threats-on-social-media-following-emma-raducanu-defeat

A tearful Shelby Rogers discusses having to contend with social media, saying: "Social media can't control what I'm doing and the way my training is going to go moving forward, but I wish it didn't exist. It's really tough"

Rogers defeated world No 1 Ashleigh Barty on Saturday but it was a very different experience for the American as Raducanu sealed a 6-2 6-1 victory.

During her press conference, the world No 43 said that she would most likely have to face death threats on social media after being knocked out.

"Obviously we appreciate the spotlight in those moments, but then you have today and I'm going to have nine million death threats and whatnot. It's very much polarising, one extreme to the other very quickly," said Rogers with a shrug.

"At this point in my career, I'd say I'm used to it. I kind of wish social media didn't exist.

"It's really unfortunate and some of it does get to your head sometimes."

Rogers acknowledged that social media interaction is encouraged as a way to market the sport and connect with fans.

"It's part of marketing now, we have contracts, we have to post certain things," said Rogers. "It is what it is.

She has to keep using social media for marketing and contracts

The moment you become a celebrity you really need to block anyone you don't know from posting on your personal social media account or being able to message you. Your manager is there to handle your fan-facing account. Retain your own personal account, locked down, for friends.

The world is a big place. No matter what you do, a percentage of people will get angry about it. That's human nature. Even Florence Nightingale would have got abuse on social media.

That is not a reason for attacking social media companies. The problem is not the tech, but human nature, which is not fixable.

Learn how to manage your social media accounts. It will be easier when those providing the service offer better self-censorship options so we have the option to block anything we do not want to see. For celebrities, it is a simple matter of outsourcing their fan-facing activities to management.

You can ignore mean tweets, you know.

When advising people to "get off social media" those who do so may be forgetting that the fans' hunger for tweets and posts is a cash cow for anyone with subscribers in high numbers. As for managing the abusive messages that invites, that's harder to navigate. You'd need to be a psychopath to shrug it off.

Learn how to manage your social media accounts. It will be easier when those providing the service offer better self-censorship options so we have the option to block anything we do not want to see. For celebrities, it is a simple matter of outsourcing their fan-facing activities to management.

While I agree that this is a smart way to handle media for celebrities, that doesn't mean that the trolls despicable behaviour should not be called out.

he was talking about everybody (of any colour or race) getting off social media

I am choosing to refer to the article.

It is anyones choice whether they do or don't use social media. Personally, I also choose not to. But if you do, then it should be considered normal not to receive abuse as in any other social situation.

Heres a newsflash for you: its not a racial thing, however much you want to make it so.

A newsflash is not required from someone with poor reading comprehension.

Black female athletes

and

 my race, my skin color.

Social media is a space anyone should feel comfortable going to, like going to the shopping mall or a walk in the park. If some idiots were abusing people in any other social space we, as a society, would expect the police to deal with it.

or maybe just not use social media anymore

Yes, black people should just hide. Don’t leave the house. That would solve the problem.