Japan taps Meta to help search for abuse of Olympic athletes

MILAN – Japan’s Olympic committee said on Feb 6 that it was working with tech giant Meta to monitor social media around the clock to protect athletes from online abuse at the Milano-Cortina Winter Games.

The Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) has designated six staff members in Milan and a further 16 in Tokyo to scour social media 24 hours a day, using artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help detect malicious material.

The JOC said that it was partnering with both Facebook parent Meta Platforms and Japanese tech company LINE Yahoo to combat online abuse.

“With the proliferation of social media, defamatory comments and malicious posts targeting athletes have become a serious social issue,” it said in a statement.

“Such behaviour not only places significant mental and physical strain on athletes, but also risks impacting their ability to perform.”

The JOC’s monitoring operation began in mid-January and Japanese media said that officials had identified roughly 2,000 potentially inappropriate posts before the Feb 6 opening ceremony.

Reports said the JOC had requested the removal of 380 social media posts, while Kyodo News said “dozens” were deleted.

Japanese figure skater Kao Miura, meanwhile, said that online abuse was “unacceptable because it hurts and saddens people”.

The 20-year-old said he had received a barrage of abusive messages at the Four Continents Championships in Beijing in January, which he went on to win.

“The notifications were annoying,” he said.

Japan’s chef de mission at the Milano-Cortina Games, Hidehito Ito, asked people to “support the athletes”.

“The athletes have worked incredibly hard to get this far and thoughtless words can take a big toll on their mental state,” he said.

“We want to identify posts as quickly as possible to make the athletes feel safe.”

In other news, anti-doping chiefs at the Winter Games said on Feb 5 they they would investigate bizarre claims that Olympic ski jumpers are injecting hyaluronic acid into their penises to get a competitive advantage.

The claims, first reported in the German media, are based on the theory that adjustments to ski jumpers’ body suits, especially around the groin, can create the effect of a sail that can add metres to a jump.

Two Norwegians were given three-month suspensions in 2025 after the team were found to have adjusted the seams of their suits around the crotch area at the 2025 World Ski Championships.

Marius Lindvik, who will seek to retain his large hill Olympic title at these Games, and another Olympic medallist, Johann Andre Forfang, were suspended, even though both argued that the suits had been altered without their knowledge.

When Witold Banka, the Polish president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), was asked about the penis injection claims at a news conference in Milan, he answered with a smile: “Ski jumping is very popular in Poland, so I promise you I’m going to look at it.”

Olivier Niggli, WADA’s director general, said: “I’m not aware of the details of ski jumping and how this can improve (performance). But if anything was to come to the surface, we would look at if it is actually doping-related.” AFP, REUTERS