A brand new social media app has been designed by a footballer to block out faceless trolls.
Sheffield Wednesday star Josh Windass took to Twitter on Monday night to reveal OPON has been in development for several months.
The app will require members to be identity verified, meaning they can be held to account for any abuse dished out.
All of the other social media site such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram allow users to sign up with just a valid email address and no more.
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Windass tweeted: "For a number of months we’ve been developing a new social media platform which came about as a result of online abuse.
"OPON is due to launch soon, the social media app requires users to be identity verified which will hold them accountable for any abuse @OponApp."
For a number of months we’ve been developing a new social media platform which came about as a result of online abuse. OPON is due to launch soon, the social media app requires users to be identity verified which will hold them accountable for any abuse @OponApp pic.twitter.com/dyvFvqqIDI
— Joshua Windass (@WindassJnr) July 12, 2021
The news of the imminent launch comes just days after England stars Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka were subjected to a torrent of disgusting racist abuse.
The England trio were unsuccessful from the spot as Italy triumphed in the Euro 2020 final at Wembley on Sunday night.
Since the dramatic penalty shootout, the Manchester United and Arsenal stars have been the latest players to be sent abuse.
Boris Johnson said the team deserve to be hailed as “heroes” following the Three Lions’ loss to Italy and not subjected to hatred online, adding that those who sent abuse should be “ashamed of themselves”.
The Prime Minister tweeted: “This England team deserve to be lauded as heroes, not racially abused on social media.
"Those responsible for this appalling abuse should be ashamed of themselves.”
And an FA spokesman said: “The FA strongly condemns all forms of discrimination and is appalled by the online racism that has been aimed at some of our England players on social media.
“We could not be clearer that anyone behind such disgusting behaviour is not welcome in following the team.
"We will do all we can to support the players affected while urging the toughest punishments possible for anyone responsible.
“We will continue to do everything we can to stamp discrimination out of the game, but we implore Government to act quickly and bring in the appropriate legislation so this abuse has real life consequences.
“Social media companies need to step up and take accountability and action to ban abusers from their platforms, gather evidence that can lead to prosecution and support making their platforms free from this type of abhorrent abuse.”
The Met also condemned the “unacceptable” abuse, adding that they will be investigating the “offensive and racist” social media posts.
What have Instagram, Facebook and Twitter said?
Instagram, Facebook and Twitter have committed to remove racist abuse as it spreads across their platforms in the wake of the Euro 2020 final.
Twitter and Facebook, which owns Instagram, have said they are working to remove such posts from their platforms and that they would look to do the same as it continues.
In response to the latest online attacks, Twitter labelled the abuse “abhorrent”, saying it has “absolutely no place on Twitter”.
“In the past 24 hours, through a combination of machine learning-based automation and human review, we have swiftly removed over 1,000 Tweets and permanently suspended a number of accounts for violating our rules - the vast majority of which we detected ourselves proactively using technology,” the company said in a statement.
“We will continue to take action when we identify any tweets or accounts that violate our policies.
“We have proactively engaged and continue to collaborate with our partners across the football community to identify ways to tackle this issue collectively and will continue to play our part in curbing this unacceptable behaviour - both online and offline.
Facebook - which owns Instagram - said it tries to remove harmful content as quickly as possible and encouraged people to use the tools it offers to block abuse.
“We quickly removed comments and accounts directing abuse at England’s footballers last night and we’ll continue to take action against those that break our rules.
“In addition to our work to remove this content, we encourage all players to turn on Hidden Words, a tool which means no-one has to see abuse in their comments or DMs.
“No one thing will fix this challenge overnight, but we’re committed to keeping our community safe from abuse.”
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