Thierry Henry announces he'll quit social media due to toxic racism and bullying

The legendary Arsenal and France star Thierry Henry announced he is quitting social media until online abuse is regulated "with the same vigour and ferocity" that copyright infringements are. Henry, 43, who recently left his role as Montreal Impact head coach, is demanding accountability from social media companies and says he will keep himself off their platforms until it is no longer easy to create an account with the intention of harassing another user and remaining anonymous.

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The former Arsenal, Barcelona and New York Red Bulls striker wrote on his social media accounts:

"From tomorrow (Saturday) morning I will be removing myself from social media until the people in power are able to regulate their platforms with the same vigour and ferocity that they currently do when you infringe copyright...

"The sheer volume of racism, bullying and resulting mental torture to individuals is too toxic to ignore. There HAS to be some accountability. It is far too easy to create an account, use it to bully and harass without consequence and still remain anonymous.

"Until this changes, I will be disabling my accounts across all social platforms. I'm hoping this happens soon."

Henry's official Facebook page has 10m followers while he has a further 2.7m followers on Instagram and 2.3m followers on Twitter.

His reaction came after a series of racial abuse scandals with the Premier League players as victims of it. Crystal Palace left-back Patrick van Aanholt was subjected to racist abuse on Instagram earlier this month after Premier League draw at home to Manchester United. The same thing previously happened to Red Devils players Axel Tuanzebe, Paul Pogba and Marcus Rashford, but also to Chelsea striker Tammy Abraham and Reading's Yakou Meite.