Heineken and Arwen team with footballers Gary Neville and Jill Scott in AI sexism test

Heineken and UK tech firm, Arwen, have joined forces to provide an AI-powered online moderation tool with the aim to protect sports fans from offensive social media content.

As announced this week, the tool hopes to protect 423 million users globally from online sexism.

The Arwen tool uses AI to tailor the content to each individual user as they personalise what they want to see.

The AI scores every comment and replies instantly, and if it is found to break a user’s tolerances, it is automatically hidden.

To highlight the need for such a tool, and the issue of online sexism, former England footballers turned pundits, Jill Scott and Gary Neville, swapped social media accounts for five days to share their own views on football news in an experiment to see what the responses would be.

Despite the fact that it was Neville’s views on Jill Scott’s accounts, the posts still received five times more sexist responses compared to the posts Scott made on Neville’s.

“Attitudes have definitely changed, but there’s no doubt that female fans, pundits, and players still get a lot more online negativity than men due to gender bias,” Scott commented.

Secrets out! Last season, @Heineken asked me to swap socials with @GNev2 to show gender bias on social media. It was fun for me but I think less so for Gary 😂. This season, let’s give sexism the red card, and let’s keep football opinions about football!⚽ #fresherfootball pic.twitter.com/vvKTU0Of5W

— Jill Scott MBE (@JillScottJS8) September 14, 2023

Arwen uses proprietary algorithms with algorithms hand-selected from the open market, to continually scan for 24 types of unwanted content in 29 languages.

Its clients include Six Nations Rugby, Mercedes AMG F1, and Fulham FC, among many other sports teams.

The global head of Heineken, Nabil Nasser, said: “By teaming up with Arwen, we are excited to be able to leverage new AI technology to help fans ditch the negative noise.”

Matthew McGrory, CEO and co-founder of Arwen, commented: “Social media users, regardless of their profile, race, gender or sexual orientation should feel empowered to use their online platforms without receiving toxic abuse.”

“We want to help create a positive online environment where people can engage with content without fear of being abused. In short, we want to make social media social again.

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