Mikel Arteta accepts that it’s a sad fact of life that those in the public eye – like footballers and managers – will come in for abuse via social media.
However, as he revealed that he’d had to deal with threats leveled at his family, he urged people to think about how they interact with others online.
The Arsenal manager knows that their profession, and the various platforms on which they can be reached by the public, means there will be always be criticism, but he wants everyone to think about how far they go with their words.
He admitted he doesn’t play close attention to what’s directed at him via his own social media accounts, but knows that young players in particular can be impacted as they have a much more active online presence.
“I think if we read everything that was written about us we’d probably have to stay in bed a lot of days,” he said.
“It’s part of it, I think it’s great that people have the ability to communicate on so many platforms and give their opinions. The only thing I’m asking is to be respectful, you know?
“Do it in a respectful way, you don’t have to batter anybody or try to hurt anybody. Yeah, just give your opinion with the best intentions and when it’s constructive I think everybody can take criticism.
“It’s part of our job to look at it and think and reflect on it but when people just have the intention of hurting, that’s when it becomes a little bit silly in my opinion. It’s just finding that balance.
“There are a lot of positives, but I think there are things we can do better as well.”
Arteta didn’t go into great detail about his own personal experiences, but made it clear that while he accepts he’s in a position which will draw personal abuse, he and the club had to deal with more far-reaching, and potentially threatening, interactions.
“I’d prefer not to [speak about it] but I think we’re all exposed to that in this industry,” he continued.
“That’s why I’d prefer not to read it because it would affect me personally much more the moment that somebody wants to [harm] my family.
“Because it happened, the club was aware of it and we tried to do something about it. That’s it. We have to live with it.
“It’s not going to stop tomorrow, we know that, but medium or long-term can we do something about it? That’s what I am pushing for.”
His words come in the same week when Joe Willock highlighted how online abuse can have a detrimental impact on some young players, particularly those who don’t have the right support structures around them.
“There’s so much pressure on you already because you are playing for Arsenal at 19-20 [years old]. That’s my job, my job is in the limelight. You have all that pressure already and then you are getting these messages as well, it’s crazy,” he told Newcastle’s in-house channel
“It’s crazy what it can do to a young player. It didn’t affect me that much because I have a really good team behind me that helps me deal with this sort of things. For other people, it could be really detrimental to their careers.
“It’s hard to deal with it, unless you have a good team around you. It’s virtually impossible. When you are on social media, it comes.
“They tag you, they message you directly – it’s always in your feed, always in your face. It’s so hard to get rid of it.”
Words to ponder from the boss, and a young player who has always given his best for the team when called up.
Too true, social media lets in lots of w***ers that get a say whenever they want. The highs and lows are exaggerated unfortunately. Its understandable that us fans feel upset if we lose but not that we ignore that there are real people that we are saying terrible things to.
Take a deep breath first before commenting, possibly several.
The internet paradox of doing exactly what you accuse the others of doing. Even in a vague form
I don’t know if this would hold up in an ethics court, but I think there’s a massive difference between having and sharing opinions, positive or negative, that you in a public forum like this, and going out of your way to directly have words with the target of your opinion. It cuts both ways, I think it can’t be particularly helpful for any person to have a bunch of people who for all intents and purposes know next to nothing about you relentlessly praising you (deservedly or not), nor is it healthy to have some doorknob lickers on your… Read more »
Or in some cases…take less breathes. None at all if you can manage it
Not you CB of course, this is directed at people who thinks it’s ok to racially abuse people online and direct threats at their families.
this generation is just too soft including Arteta this has been going on for years we just now have social media to highlight it .. its not good to receive threats etc but criticism and abuse you’re not gonna stoo people from dishing it out as long as you’re a public figure its part of the job get on with it. back in the day it ws worse than this people showed up at your house wait for you in the parking lot the threat was even greater these days the threat is social media emojis and people are losing… Read more »
It’s a really tough one for tech companies. If they go too hard then we think they are impinging our freedoms but if they let it go then it causes distress. I’m no fan of social media and I left it all a few years back (which is why I annoy the hell out of you all on here) for these reasons. It’s such a cesspit and I would urge people to cancel social media. It’s the best decision I ever made and if you suffer with mental health issues, it makes a massive difference. People need to do a… Read more »
It’s just a good job I’ve never made a pro’s and con’s list for being an Arsenal fan…
haha – the con is you have to be pro-Arsenal for life!
Excellent one, Blogs.
Let’s be honest, we are all afraid to make such lists cos we know full well the answer…
There speaks a youngster – I’m still dining out on 89 and the invincibles… and the Littlewoods cup in 87… and Alan Smith against Parma… I think the thing is we were a bit rubbish before that so I caught the up curve and you’re only getting down curve… I hope you get to experience some of that curvy upness soon Duno!
Top post, well said! 😊👍
Joseph Heller would be proud!
That could lead to therapy and big bills.
Nick Hornby’s excellent autobiographical book, ‘Fever Pitch’ has a great chapter where unfortunately Nick sadly went through a bout of depression that he says finally began to lift the night we (Arsenal) went to White Hart Lane and beat Tottenham in the Littlewoods Cup (League Cup) Semi Final Replay in 1987. He even joked, bless him, that he got the referral to see a psychiatrist without having to show his Arsenal Season Ticket. In fact, the final time he went to ‘see a lady in Hampstead’ was on the afternoon of the aforementioned game – from there he headed straight… Read more »
Nick Hornby ‘Fever Pitch’ – Read by the author. https://youtu.be/MGyiOKKLnzw
Check out the film of it too.
Oh, the film is superb. Just brilliant.
(The Colin Firth Arsenal related film, not the American version)
Well done on going social media free. I am too and it’s the best decision I ever made. To be fair it’s easy when you have 3 digit followers and post poor quality photos of hikes or vacations that even you don’t care to look back on, but for some reason anywhere from 0-12 people are bored/kind/taking pity enough to leave a like.
Nice one man! Yeah, it’s actually weird how little you miss it. I got quite panicked about it, thinking I’d lose touch with all these people and I’d miss out on so much stuff. But within a week or two the need for habitual scrolling dissipated and I never looked back.
I wish people would try it for just a week. Social media is like a drug. The more you use it the more you think you need it. But when you make a clean break, you realise it made your life worse.
I’m like you Johnny in that I don’t do the standard “social media” especially as I’m not interested in what people’s dinners looked like or endless photos of dogs/kids/holidays. We do have to recognise though that arseblog is still social media. Some of the posts on here are abusive, rude or unwarranted at least. I tend to work on the basis of “would I say that directly to another person face to face or even by phone” if they knew who I was? It is the anonimity which enables the coward to hide. I do recognise the difficulty in restricting… Read more »
This is a (currently) underrated post.
Any forum where you can post comments should be considered social media. I get that you can’t direct your vitriol directly to players and the manager here but it *can* breed that hate that people will take away and then post elsewhere.
The internet has done a lot of good but also brings out the absolute worst in some. Think before you post boys and girls! And be respectful when you do!
Pretty disgusting.
On a lighter note, when I saw some bloke, a while back, sending a picture of his plate of food to the world, that’s when I promised myself I would never have one of those social media accounts
It is disgusting and incredibly cowardly. There’s no chance these wimps would say anything like that to the persons face.
I definitely didn’t laugh to myself when I first heard Mike Dean mentioned earlier in the week though… (cough..)
Well said.
Let’s be honest: there’s nothing that the social media companies can do. The nature of these media is that anybody can anonymously abuse anybody else.
The best thing that these celebrities can do is to shut down their accounts. I’ve never been on social media and I don’t miss it. Hoping that the abusive morons can all be prosecuted is futile.
For me it’s time to outlaw anonymous accounts.
In what sane society has it ever been legal or acceptable to threaten and abuse people.
If everyone had to own what they said, there would be a lot less of this abuse.
The whole thing is fucking weird innit? Successful millionaires caring what some vicious twat from Dudley posts about them. A whole section of the internet who’s sole purpose seems to be to post the most controversial thing they can think of just to get a reaction. I like to think the people posting this crap are maladjusted lunatics who eat the dog ends they find at the bus stop. The scary thing is, it’s not always some weirdo wanking into his mum’s slipper with one hand while tweeting with the other*, but our own friends and family*. *sometimes it’s both.… Read more »
2 schools of thought: Social media companies are simply utilities similar to the telephone. A telephone company doesn’t get in trouble if you call someone and yell racist things at them through the phone line. (Problem is much more public now on Internet). Social media companies should simply not allow anyone to join anonymously. You should have to provide ID (driver’s licence, etc) to create an account. This will cause some problems obviously for disenfranchised people who have no ID (think of the voter suppression in states like Georgia in the U.S.). Very complicated issue, but I think the current… Read more »
Phone companies at least require an address and a bank card and the technology to trace phone calls is well established. I imagine if someone makes abusive phone calls, it is easy for the phone companies to link it to a specific account. The equivalent might be if phone companies left random mobiles lying around in the streets that you could pick up with the whole world’s contact details in already and allowed you to directly ring and scream down the mobiles of anyone you wanted to for free. Don’t think social media companies can be seen as utilities companies… Read more »
Also, there are good reasons why people need, and should be able to have, anonymous social media accounts.
Anonymity does always = abuse.
There are also plenty of whoppers who use their full names and pictures to send abuse and racism.
Well thats nothing compared to here in Brazil.
We beat the players, crash their cars, buses, those kind of ridiculous shit.
(Read ‘we’ brazilians, i dont beat people up haha)
Those things never gonna stop here, the rival fans, they literally kill each other on matchday.
Just stop with social media if you are a player, thats what i would do
people are stupid
Everyone has a right to have and express opinions. Not all opinions deserve to be expressed
Tidy goal for Willock was nice to see
Yep. So far, so good.
Well, no one in their right mind can disagree with any of this. Banter is fine, but name-calling and abuse just because someone appreciates the football of Mesut Ozil – sorry, has a difference of opinion – is the cowardice of the keyboard warriors. But it’s nothing new. I’m not here to condone violence, but there was nothing funnier back in the day than seeing some gobby oik rival fan giving it the large one in a pub or a street near the ground and ending up flat on his backside with a shiner on the way for his trouble.… Read more »
shut the fuck up about ozil then
I rest my case….
That post started so well…
Why would anyone send threats or abuse to a football manager? Get a grip, it’s a game.
Even if you think Arteta is useless he doesn’t seem particularly aggravating or provocative.
It’s not a tough one for social media companies at all, and anyone who says differently is just blinded by capitalism… KYC!! Anyone who’s worked in finance will know that acronym: Know Your Customer. Banks can’t get away without verifying who their customer is, so why do we let social media companies get away with it? A debit or credit card required to make a social media account, verified against your name. If you’re a company trying to set up an account, then that’s a separate process. Easy, simple. Done. So what if your users drop by 10%. It weeds… Read more »
It’s really a crazy world out there.
Is he talking abut AFTV?:D
Robbie tries to keep it civil but there are many clowns on there who are driven more by raw emotion than their heads. They feel entitled to say things which frankly (particularly during wenger Out) were sometimes classless often shallow.
but what do we expect from footy fans?
CLAUDE: It’s time to go! It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee!!
TY: Where’s the coffee? Where’s the coffee? Where’s the coffee? Where’s the coffee?
CLAUDE: It’s time to go!
TY: Go where? Go where? Go where? Go where?
CLAUDE: It’s time to wake up!
TY: I am awake! I am awake! I am awake! I am awake!
CLAUDE: It’s time!
TY: What time? What time? What time? What time?
Not making excuses for the kind of cunts who would abuse someone’s family on social media, but the only thing that social media have really changed is that the affected can now read what people have always thought.
I’m sure there were always dipshits badmouthing managers’ wives and kids in bars and such, but nobody paid them the least attention, because they could tell they were wankers.
But now, wankers can direct their moronic insults right at who they want to insult.
The internet hasn’t made the fans’ comments more toxic – just more visible.
Hmmmmmm?