Celtic ready to lead Social Media boycott

Celtic are likely to take part in a four-day Social Media boycott starting on Friday.

Some cynics of the club’s output would suggest that missing out on a few birthday messages is unlikely to rock the world but it would cut out almost all coverage of Sunday’s Glasgow Derby.

The club’s media conferences are the most eagerly followed events on Twitter, on Friday John Kennedy and a first team player will meet the broadcast media with their answers to questions fed through Twitter.

English football will boycott Social Media over four days from Friday with the Daily Record reporting that the Scottish game is set to follow:

Scottish football is set to stand behind the fight against racism this weekend by agreeing to a blanket boycott of all social media platforms.

Record Sport understands the SPFL has been canvassing all 42 clubs for opinions over the last two days after a similar move was announced south of the border at the beginning of this week involving all clubs across the English top flight, the EFL and the women’s game.

And Hampden bosses hope to rubber-stamp their own black-out on Wednesday before pulling to plug on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram in a four day show of unity against online abuse and hatred from Friday until midnight on Monday, in coordination with the English plan.

It is hoped the high profile joint approach will help pile pressure on the social media giants to do more crack down on vile trolls using their platforms to send discriminatory, hate filled comments to players across the game.

You Tube isn’t mentioned in the report which allows the club to continue to upload media conferences onto that platform as normal. Celtic routinely do that with the exception of Neil Lennon’s fiery exchange before the January trip to Livingston following the Dubai trip.

Yesterday Celtic retweeted the news that Manny Perez had left the club to join Portland Timbers and being sent out on loan to Austin.