Are college sports fans taking things too far on social media?

Based on the results of an investigation into online harassment in college sports, the NCAA is asking fans and social media companies to “curb rampant online abuse.”

The investigation conducted by the NCAA in partnership with Signify Group used the AI service Threat Matrix to examine public comments that targeted student-athletes, coaches and officials in seven NCAA-sanctioned sports — college football at both the FBS and FCS levels; men’s and women’s basketball; women’s volleyball; women’s softball; baseball; and women’s gymnastics.

Specifically, the study focused on comments made during those sports’ championships, such as March Madness or the College Football Playoff.

The accounts of 3,164 student-athletes, 489 coaches, 197 game officials, 165 teams and 12 NCAA official channels were monitored and in total, 72,000 messages were flagged by the AI-based algorithm from 1.3 million posts/comments that were targeted at the social media profiles of student-athletes, coaches and officials taking part in the championships.

Of the flagged messages, over 5,000 posts contained abusive, discriminatory or threatening content, which the NCAA has reported to social media platforms for action.

According to the study — which can be read in full here — 80% of the abuse was directed at student-athletes who participated in March Madness, in either the men’s or women’s tournaments.

Additionally:

• 18% of all abuse was sexual, making it the most prevalent type of abuse used to target male and female student-athletes.
• 12% of all abuse was related to sports betting, with more than 740 instances. As betting markets increased, so did the prevalence of harassment. Additionally, some abuse flagged in other categories indicated that the posts were betting-related.
• 10% of abuse consisted of racist content.
• 9% of abuse was homophobic/transphobic.
• 6% of abuse, approximately 380 instances, was considered violent.

While it was difficult to compare abuse/threat targeting between men and women athletes because of unequal participation, women’s basketball student-athletes received approximately three times more threats than men’s basketball student-athletes. In baseball and softball, though, the ratios of abuse types “were fairly consistent between the men’s and women’s competitions,” the investigation report reads.

Bots have proven to be an issue as well.

Per the study, 92% of the content detected under the sexual category during the NCAA women’s gymnastics championships was sent from bot accounts that encouraged online users to access sexual content.

The bigger the championship event didn’t necessarily mean more abuse directed toward student-athletes.

For instance, more comments were flagged during the women’s volleyball and women’s gymnastics championships as “concerning” than were flagged during March Madness or the College Football Playoff.

Abuse wasn’t directed equally to athletes. One unnamed athlete received over 1,400 abusive messages over a two-week period.

“I’ve heard too many student-athletes talk about abusive messages they have received, and for the first time ever, we now have evidence of the scale at which this is occurring. It’s incredibly alarming and completely unacceptable,” NCAA president Charlie Baker said in a statement. “Fans have to do better, social media companies have to do more to identify and remove this content, and we all need reminders about responsible social media usage.

“Student-athletes come to college hoping to fulfill their athletic and academic dreams, and our job at the NCAA is to provide them with the most fulfilling experience possible. We will exhaust all options to reduce the harassment and vitriol student-athletes are experiencing too often today.”

That social media can be detrimental to the well-being of student-athletes isn’t new information.

“I’ve seen firsthand the negative impacts of social media abuse on the mental health of myself and my loved ones,” Connor McCaffery, men’s basketball assistant coach at Butler, said in a statement. “There must be more done to address this toxic behavior impacting sports at all levels.”

Many student-athletes try to avoid social media during their respective sports’ season because of the comments they receive.

“I don’t really think about that. I’m not on social media,” Utah quarterback Isaac Wilson said. “Everyone says, ‘Oh, go look at Twitter.’ Twitter is the last place I go. But yeah, I try to stay off social media, all that stuff.”

Others, like Utah running back Micah Bernard, admittedly devour social media content.

“I’ll be reading tweets. I see everything, what everybody be saying, but we know what we can do,” he said. “And now y’all see it’s just not easy to play college football. Anything can happen.”

Bernard may be in the minority, but he has fun with what he sees on social media. Almost relishing in the absurdity of it all.

“I laugh. I literally laugh. I sit behind my phone, I laugh. I wish I wasn’t the guy, but I would tweet some people back and just have a ball with some people, but I just sit there and laugh at them.

I’m like, what are you talking about? And it’s just funny to me because everybody has their own opinion, but they don’t know what’s actually going on,” he continued. “And I appreciate our fans and the real true fans that don’t say anything. I appreciate you guys, so keep going, but hey, roll with us. Roll with us.”

Last gymnastics season, in an attempt to make social media a more friendly place for Utah gymnasts, Red Rocks head coach Carly Dockendorf went out of her way to encourage her student-athletes in the public forum, turning an at-times toxic environment into a more uplifting one.

“I’ve never really thought about it from the negative side,” she told the Deseret News . “Just more of the personal side. I just want to reiterate and remind them of how amazing they are.”

That online abuse of student-athletes exists is a real problem, though, the NCAA contends.

“Online abuse and cyberbullying have no place in our society or college athletics,” Purdue men’s basketball head coach Matt Painter said in a statement. “Thousands of student-athletes across the country face harassment every day on social media, and the bullying can affect their mental health well-being, causing stress, depression and suicidal thoughts. The increased exposure to online gambling only exacerbates the online abuse, with many student-athletes receiving death threats via social media. We are asking all social media companies and platforms to do more to identify and remove these online threats and make their platforms safer for everyone.”

The Deseret News’ Joe Coles contributed to this report.