Thierry Henry to continue avoiding 'poisonous' social media
Thierry Henry is a legend in north London after becoming Arsenal's record goalscorer - Credit: PA Archive/PA Images
Arsenal legend Thierry Henry says he has no plans to return to social media and has accused companies of making money from hate.
The former France international footballer used his slot at this week’s Web Summit in Lisbon to accuse sites of “not really trying” to combat online abuse.
Henry, 44, now assistant manager of the Belgium national team, launched his boycott in March - and says he "sleeps well" for not being trolled online.
As reported in the Guardian, he said at the summit: “When you find that they generate money through hate, it is very difficult when your medicine is your poison."
“They are not really trying to change anything about it,” he added.
Henry also announced he, along with his sponsor Puma and the Game of Our Lives foundation, would be launching a campaign to demand action from social media giants.
He also spoke out in support of Crystal Palace winger Wilfried Zaha who complained about abuse he received over Instagram at the weekend.
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A spokesperson from Meta, the newly launched parent company of Instagram and Facebook, said: "We have absolutely no commercial incentive, no moral incentive, no company-wide incentive to do anything other than to try to give the maximum number of people as much of a positive experience as possible across our apps, and that is what we do day in and day out.
"The growth of people or advertisers using our apps means nothing if our services aren't being used in ways that bring people closer together.
"No one should have to experience racist abuse anywhere, and we don't want it on our apps. We remove hateful content as soon as we find it and respond quickly to valid legal requests to help with police investigations."
