Works begin in Ireland to exhume remains of hundreds of babies found at unwed mothers' home
LONDON — Officials in Ireland began work Monday to excavate the site of a former church-run home for unmarried women and their babies to identify the remains of some 800 infants and young children who died there.
The long-awaited excavation at the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway in western Ireland, is part of a reckoning in an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country with a history of abuses in church-run institutions.
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New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Why online abuse of tennis players led to law enforcement investigations in 2024
Tennis players last year received abuse so threatening that 15 cases were escalated to law enforcement agencies, according to a joint report released Tuesday by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) and International Tennis Federation (ITF). The report, which covers the 2024 season, lays bare the scale of abuse directed at players on social media. It also offers a reminder that the detected abuse only scratches the surface. Advertisement Between January to December 2024, an artificial intelligence threat analysis system analyzed 1.6 million posts and comments. It verified around 8,000 posts/comments sent from 4,200 accounts as abusive, violent or threatening. 8,000 out of 1.6 million is just 0.5 percent, underlining the true scale of the problem. The report identified 458 players as targeted with direct abuse or threats, with five players receiving 26 percent of the posts classified as abusive. 97 social media accounts were responsible for 23 percent of all detected abuse. According to the data analysis, angry gamblers sent 40 percent of all detected abuse across the year. Of the 10 most prolific accounts, responsible for 12 percent of all abuse detected, nine have either been suspended or deleted their post(s), or had them removed by the relevant platform. One account sent 263 abusive messages in 2024, but has not posted any abusive content in 2025 to date. Of the 15 incidents reported to law enforcement agencies, four took place at the Grand Slams, one at the Olympics, and the other 10 were across tour events. Three were submitted to the FBI, with 12 investigated by other national law enforcement bodies. They led to individuals being banned from venues and having tickets rescinded. Signify Group's Threat Matrix service, which went live in January 2024, is designed to help protect players by detecting and filtering out abusive messages through a combination of AI and human analysts. All players competing in WTA Tour and ITF World Tennis Tour events (and WTA and ITF players competing in the four Grand Slams) are automatically covered by the service. But targeted abuse is just the tip of the iceberg. During last month's French Open, Jessica Pegula, the world No. 3, said that abuse always finds a way to enter her timeline, even if not directed at her. Advertisement 'These bettors are insane and delusional,' Pegula wrote in the wake of her shock fourth-round defeat to French qualifier Loïs Boisson. 'I don't allow DMs, and try to remember when to shut my comments off during tournament weeks … This stuff has never really bothered me much, but does any other sport deal with this to our level? I'd love to know because it seems to be predominantly tennis? It's so disturbing. 'Every person on tour deals with it. It's so bad. Those are just really small snippets. I get told my family should get cancer and die from people on here on a regular basis. Absolutely crazy.' Bettors and angry fans will name players in abusive comments after a loss, even if they do not message or tag them on social media when doing so. The normalization of this kind of abuse has become a major issue for the sport, and is the natural next step for people who have been blocked or can't message the targets of their abuse directly. The Athletic has contacted the WTA and ITF for clarity on what the report classifies as targeted hate. The ITF, the WTA and its men's counterpart, the ATP, share match data with providers linked to sports betting. Pegula, who sits on the WTA Players' Council, said Tuesday: 'Online abuse is unacceptable, and something that no player should have to endure. I welcome the work that the WTA and ITF are doing with Threat Matrix to identify and take action against the abusers, whose behavior is so often linked to gambling. 'But it's not enough on its own. It's time for the gambling industry and social media companies to tackle the problem at its source and act to protect everyone facing these threats.' Caroline Garcia, the French former world No. 4 who will retire later this year, opened up on the damaging effects of social media abuse at the U.S. Open last August. She wrote on Instagram that 'unhealthy betting' accounted for most of the abuse, and emphasized how damaging it was to players who were already 'emotionally destroyed' after a defeat. Advertisement 'If someone decided to say these things to me in public, he could have legal issues. So why online we are free to do anything? Shouldn't we reconsider anonymity online?' Garcia wrote. A Betting and Gaming Council spokesperson told BBC Sport that the organization does 'not tolerate abuse on social media, which has no place in betting or sport'. The Athletic has contacted the organization for comment, as well as Meta, the company which owns social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Jonathan Hirshler, the chief executive of Signify Group, which developed the Threat Matrix service, said that the fact that a lot of the abuse came from a small number of accounts 'means that we are able to be even more focused working with the platforms to ensure successful take down, support the tennis bodies to drive law enforcement intervention for the most egregious accounts and work with event security teams to ensure prolific abusers are unable to attend tournaments.' The threat of online abuse can also tip into real-world threats. At the French Open, Denmark's Clara Tauson and Jakub Menšík of the Czech Republic both confronted bettors who abused them from the stands. And in March, at a practice session during the Miami Open, world No. 8 Iga Świątek was confronted by someone who has regularly abused her online. The tournament gave Świątek additional security after the incident, which a representative for the five-time Grand Slam champion described to The Athletic as 'a direct transition from verbal aggression online to harassment in the real world.' It's not clear whether the tweets from the man who confronted Świątek would have counted as targeted abuse, as some did not tag her directly. The report outlines a spike in abuse from gamblers during Grand Slams. As Wimbledon gets under way on Mon. June 30, players will again face abuse and harassment from people gambling on their matches.
New York Times
4 hours ago
- New York Times
They Said She Was Home-Schooled. She Said She Was Locked in a Dog Crate.
It was dark out when the barefoot teenage girl barreled through the door of Susan Lacey's cottage in Blackwood, N.J., and released a torrent of words. She said she had been locked in a dog crate for a year and handcuffed to a toilet and not allowed to eat and didn't go to school but she did get to take the dogs outside and her stepfather sometimes touched her but she got to listen to music and ate from a bucket but her little sister didn't have to and she was really, truly Freddie Mercury, from Queen. She giggled. Ms. Lacey sat her down on the couch and told her to breathe. It took a moment for Ms. Lacey to recognize her: It was her neighbor's daughter, and though the girl lived just feet away, she was rarely seen outdoors, and had been home-schooled for the past seven years. She was 18 years old, her hair was shaved close and uneven, and she smelled foul. Ms. Lacey heated up a corn dog for her as the words kept coming. The girl's jumbled mix of horrors and non sequiturs about pop music made Ms. Lacey and her adult son, who was visiting, wonder if what she was saying was true. Then the teenager raised her hand toward her mouth to take a bite of the corn dog. There were marks on her wrists. Had she tried to harm herself? Ms. Lacey asked. No, the girl replied. For the year she spent locked in the crate, she said, she had often had her hands cuffed behind her back. The cuffs had left scars. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
Tennis player Boulter reveals scale of online abuse
Katie Boulter had just lost a tie-break at the French Open when the death threats started. It did not matter that the Briton would go on to win the match. "Hope you get cancer," said one message. Another - laced with expletives - referenced damaging her "grandmother's grave if she's not dead by tomorrow" and "candles and a coffin for your entire family". A third said: "Go to hell, I lost money my mother sent me." The British number two's response, as she reads through them 10 days later, is a mix of despair, resignation and fear. Boulter agreed to sit down with BBC Sport to provide unprecedented insight into the volume and nature of abuse received by players, including sharing screenshots of her private inbox. Boulter's reasoning for sharing the messages is two-fold. The first, she says, is abusive content like this has become "the norm". Boulter, 28, also has fears about the impact it can have on younger players. "At the very start of my career, it's probably something I took very personally... getting comments about the way you look," she says. "It becomes more apparent every single time you go on your phone. "I think it increases in number and it also increases in the level of things that people say. I don't think there's anything off the cards now." The message threatening her loved ones was sent during her French Open first-round match against Carole Monnet on 29 May. After losing the first-set tie-break, Boulter rallied to win 6-7 (4-7) 6-1 6-1 - her first victory in the main draw at Roland Garros. As she reflects on the messages she receives, she says it is hard to differentiate between those that constitute a genuine risk and those that do not. "I think it just kind of shows how vulnerable we are," Boulter says. "You really don't know if this person is on site. You really don't know if they're nearby or if they know where you live or anything like that." Looking again at the message hoping she gets cancer, she shakes her head. "I just wonder who the person is that has sent that," she says. "I don't think it's something that I would ever say to my worst enemy. It's just an awful, awful thing to say to anyone. It's horrible." Boulter believes a lot of the abuse she is sent is from people who have placed bets on her matches, given it comes after victories as well as defeats. She says she has become better at moving on from it, or simply not looking at her direct messages, but the impact is clear. "As far as death threats, it's just not something you want to be reading straight after an emotional loss," she says. "A lot of the time you get it after you win as well." Statistics shared exclusively with BBC Sport demonstrate the level of abuse aimed at players through social media, and what is being done to try to address it. The figures - provided by data science firm Signify, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and Women's Tennis Association (WTA) - show that in 2024, about 8,000 abusive, violent or threatening messages were sent publicly to 458 tennis players through their social media accounts. A significant proportion of abuse stems from betting, according to Signify, which has been working with tennis authorities on detecting abuse through an artificial intelligence-led detection system called Threat Matrix. More than a quarter of all abuse (26%) was targeted at five players. The most prolific account sent 263 abusive messages, and 15 accounts were escalated to law enforcement. Nine of the 10 most prolific accounts - the majority of which were related to angry gamblers - were either suspended or had content removed. Details of 39 account holders were shared with the tennis authorities and betting industry for further action. Across the year, angry gamblers sent 40% of all detected abuse, with messages clearly related to betting activity because of the timing or content of the abuse. Asked for a response, a Betting and Gaming Council spokesperson said its members "do not tolerate abuse on social media, which has no place in betting or sport". It added: "It is vital social media companies take swift action against users, and remove offensive content." Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, declined to provide a comment on the record but has developed various tools to try to prevent people from seeing abuse - including hiding and filtering offensive or unwanted comments or images and technology that tracks and removes abuse. Gamblers behind half of abusive posts to tennis stars 'Every woman has fear' - why risks facing female athletes remain Boulter, who is ranked 39th in the world, says explicit images are another problem for players. "I've had quite a few of those sorts of things," says Boulter, though she did acknowledge she thought "a lot of things" were filtered out through Instagram. "I have noticed that more in my hidden messages or requests, which is a place I don't go to very often. "That's also a larger problem. Youngsters really shouldn't be seeing things like that or being sent things like that." Boulter says she has occasionally engaged with those who have sent her abuse, in an effort to get them to think about what they have said. She says: "I've just tried to send them a nice message [so] maybe they can take a second and look at themselves and go: 'Oh, well maybe I shouldn't have sent that.' "Sometimes the replies I actually get from that is them saying: 'Oh no, I'm a huge fan. I'm so sorry. I didn't want to send you that stuff, but it was emotional, I didn't mean to. You know, I still support you. I think you're amazing.' "They don't realise sometimes what they've actually said to these people." Boulter is preparing for the level of abuse to increase when she plays at her home Grand Slam. "Wimbledon for me would probably be pretty astronomical," she explains, adding she also receives abuse based on the performances of her fiance - Australian world number 12 Alex de Minaur. "As a couple, we actually both get a little bit from each other as well, so he tends to get some of my matches if I've lost, and if he's lost then sometimes I get his and likewise sometimes when he's won. "You can get hundreds of messages after games, after points, after sets and after matches." Swiatek abused by 'aggressive' fan in Miami incident Caroline Garcia, then the world number 30, spoke last year about the level of abuse players are subjected to. The Frenchwoman pleaded for online trolls to remember players "are human". And she suggested tournaments partnering with betting companies added to the problems. Five-time major champion Iga Swiatek and US Open finalist Jessica Pegula were among those who supported Garcia's message. Pegula described "constant death threats" and "family threats" as being "normal now". The American has joined others in the sport calling for the gambling industry to help tackle prolific and threatening message connected to betting. "Online abuse is unacceptable, and something that no player should have to endure," she said. "It's time for the gambling industry and social media companies to tackle the problem at its source and act to protect everyone facing these threats." In May 2023, American Taylor Townsend shared a screenshot of the death threat and racist abuse she received in an email after losing a match. Sloane Stephens and Jay Clarke had previously revealed the level of racist abuse they were subjected to on social media. Other sportspeople have also been targeted, including England footballers Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka and Jadon Sancho after Euro 2020. Threat Matrix was first used by tennis authorities in January 2024 after collaboration between the ITF, WTA, All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) and United States Tennis Association (USTA). It has been used in other sports over the past five years. It covers WTA and ITF players throughout the year, with all competitors offered the service during Wimbledon and the US Open. Players can also share abuse received through direct messages, and are offered security advice. Sally Bolton - chief executive of AELTC - told BBC Sport social media has made existing levels of abuse "significantly worse". "We try very hard to protect the players when they're on site and digitally we are investing in helping to support them to not have that abuse happen," she said. "It's disappointing that athletes aren't able to go about what they do without receiving that abuse, but unfortunately it is a reality, and betting on sport now I'm afraid is also a reality, so we have to think about how we can mitigate some of that threat and risk." The WTA and ITF told us protecting players from online abuse was "a key priority". "From law enforcement escalation and platform intervention to banning abusers from our events, perpetrators must understand that they will face consequences for their actions," they said in a statement. The WTA and ITF also defended the partnerships in place which share data with third-party organisations - including betting companies - insisting it increases regulation and generates income for projects such as Threat Matrix. "Betting on sport is inevitable, so it is crucial that the data used for that purpose comes from one official source. This is why we have rigorously vetted partnerships with official data suppliers - without them, betting on tennis could take place in unregulated markets, based on unofficial data, for which there is no oversight and little or no deterrent to corruptors." Jonathan Hirshler - CEO of Signify Group - highlighted how a "significant proportion" of abuse comes from a "relatively small" number of accounts. He added: "Constructive dialogue with betting operators, as well as social media platforms and law enforcement would be a positive next step to discuss what collective action can be taken to address these concerns." Live scores, results and order of play Get tennis news sent straight to your phone
