Gary Lineker shared a screenshot of a message sent by a user (picture credit: AFP)
Former England footballer turned sports TV presenter c has challenged Twitter boss Elon Musk after his son received death threats on the microblogging platform. The Match Of The Day (MOTD) host – who was reinstated by the BBC on Monday shared a screenshot of a message sent by a user describing his eldest son, George, as a “mug” and said he needed to be “burned at the stake”.
Along with the screenshot, Mr Linekar wrote, “Is this acceptable @Twitter @elonmusk? And I don’t mean the grammar.”
Is this acceptable @Twitter@elonmusk? And I don’t mean the grammar. pic.twitter.com/fCVIIq3we2
— Gary Lineker 💙💛 (@GaryLineker) March 14, 2023
Earlier, George had tweeted, “Social media’s mad isn’t it. Over the last few days, on insta – never had so many nice messages. On Twitter – never had so much abuse. It’s not even anything to do with me.”
Mr Lineker was suspended by the BBC for his tweets criticising the government’s migration policy. His son, George, spoke out in support of his father amid the controversy and said that he shouldn’t apologise for being a good person and he was proud of him.
The BBC has now agreed to allow the former football player back on the air this weekend.
In November last year after Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, Mr Linekar said he would continue using the platform. He said, “Obviously there are things going on but I’ve not really noticed it’s had an effect on my Twitter at the moment. We’ll have to wait and see what it is and where it’s going.”
“He (Mr Musk) seems to be throwing ideas out every five minutes and we’re all waiting to see what it will be like and what’s going to happen. It’s interesting times,” he said.
“I’m not going to stand here and say I’m going to come off Twitter because I’m not. It’s a big platform and I try to use it for what I think are important issues as well as having a bit of fun and promoting things in my job and talking about football,” he wrote.
