Sun. Dec 22nd, 2024
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Scotland’s Kirsty Gilmour is still receiving death threats and abuse on social media despite using artificial intelligence (AI) to block out trolls.

Last year the Olympian, 30, revealed she had been sent rape and death threats, thought to be from gamblers who had bet on matches she lost.

And while the new software has stopped much of the abuse reaching her, some is still getting through.

“I received a terrible message the other day,” she told BBC Scotland.

“But I am currently working with an AI company called Arwen and a kind of investigative company called Sportradar.

“They can really investigate profiles and the AI software stops the messages from getting to me, so I can go on living my troll-less life. Then if I want anything investigated Sportradar would step in if we thought there was a real threat.

“I’ve got some things that came to the table after I last spoke out about it and I’m just so, so grateful for all the support I got after that – not just from Arwen and Sportsradar but the hundreds of messages I received.

“It definitely has improved – but there’s still meanies out there.”

Gilmour, a two-times Commonwealth Games medallist, is set for her third Olympics this summer in Paris, and says with “time marching on” she is changing her outlook on the sport.

“I’m constantly trying to think what can I do better, what gains can I make? Is there extra things I could be doing?” she added.

“I’ve had a good chat with coaches and psychologists recently about how maybe we could let all that stuff go, maybe we could just trust what we’re doing, and we could just be freer, so that’s where I’m trying to get my brain to currently.

“I’ve been doing this tour for about 12 years now, and I’m going to try a new thing where I trust myself and stop overthinking things, but probably I’m going to overthink the best way to do that.”

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this story you can visit BBC Action Line.

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