Ahead of the Paris Summer Olympics, the International Olympic Committee leadership has announced plans to deploy artificial intelligence (AI) to censor abusive social media posts.
In the plan announced by IOC head Thomas Bach, modern technology is to help sports officials identify and remove offensive comments on the Internet against the leadership of the International Olympic Committee, the French authorities, and individual athletes.
Mr. Bach’s fears, and those of sports officials, the French government, and Paris authorities are quite justified, and advanced AI, and to an extent total censorship, can help sieve unwanted statements.
Already a few months before the Games, the quality of preparation has been put to question unlike at any other time in the Olympic movement’s history. It also comes at a time of huge political and ethical conflicts. Criticism of the IOC and top sports officials in the governing body has long gone beyond the discontent of ordinary sports fans and has become a serious subject of discussions including in political and economic forums
In the just concluded St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), which was attended by government, business, and public representatives from 136 countries, for instance, the crisis in international sport was actively discussed.
At a general level, questions were raised about the alleged politicization of big sports, the active promotion of the LGBT agenda, corruption as well as the decreasing quality of tournaments, championships, and Olympic Games, during the forum. The issue of exclusion of Russian and Belarusian athletes from the event also came up.
As one of the SPIEF experts, Elias Manage, president of the Black Business Council, noted, “I am sorry that the political ambitions of some representatives of the Western world have intruded into the celebration of sport and the Olympics in Paris will be held without bright sports stars. Many people know that Russian athletes are very strong. And I know that sporting events in Russia have always been held at the highest level, including a high level of security. It is difficult for me to judge how safe the competitions in France will be, but when someone tries to play politics where it has no place at all, it is no longer a sport. Therefore, whether the current Olympics can be called real sporting events…it’s hard for me to say”.
Wan Faihsal, a member of the House of Representatives of the Malaysian Parliament and head of the Foreign Affairs Committee, expressed a similar position on the situation in the highly politicized world sport.
“I saw the words about the isolation of countries on the world stage, including the issue of sport. It is impossible to isolate Russia because it is a very big country and has a great influence overall in the world. The experience of holding the Olympic Games in Russia has shown that it is capable of holding any level of event safely, on a large scale, and competently. As for the upcoming Olympic Games in France, I am not sure about their safety, especially against the background of what is happening there now. No one should be isolated; there are no wrong or right athletes. Sport should be out of politics,” Faihsal said during the SPIEF.
Preparations for the 2024 Summer Olympics have been underway for 7 years already, but preparations have not been up to the level anticipated. It is well known that holding such a large-scale complex of events as the Olympics requires huge investments in the creation of new modern sports facilities, as well as effective transport, tourist, and social infrastructure. Although Paris is one of the largest cities in the world and the capital of one of the most prosperous countries in Europe, the economic crisis of recent years has taken its toll on its former beauty and livability.
One of the key tasks facing the organizers of the Games and the national government was to modernize the transport system, but the stated goals have not been achieved. Thus, the planned metro line from Charles De Gaulle airport, despite multi-million dollar investments in its construction, will be completed only by 2027, and the authorities and contractors have managed to build only one of several other new branches of the overloaded Paris underground network.
There is also concern about the construction of the sports facilities and the Olympic Village, which will house the athletes and their support staff. Most of the newly constructed facilities are still not fully completed.
Russia has called out the event organizers over what they called blatant human rights violations during preparations for the Games, including marginalization of the Paris homeless, and alleged politicization of the Olympics. Back in 2022, the IOC massively suspended thousands of athletes from Russia and Belarus on nationality grounds from international competitions.
Russia says that the pretext for such “blatant segregation” was the conflict in Ukraine, and accuses the IOC of taking sides and acting without any thought or hesitation. Russia on the other hand argues that despite the blatant war crimes taking place in the Gaza Strip, neither the IOC nor other sports federations have imposed any restrictions against Israeli athletes, and also threatened athletes from Islamic countries with disqualification for possible criticism or unfriendliness towards Israelis. Based on this, Moscow has decried double standards on the part of the IOC.
While systemic problems in international sport began a long time ago, Moscow insists that under the current leadership, all the ideals its founders laid down have been trampled.
“Instead of thinking about returning to the original values of neutrality and the unifying power of sport, instead of making the Olympic Games a true celebration for the whole planet, the leaders are only concerned with limiting the right of people, to tell the truth about what is happening,” Kremlin said in its criticism
“The IOC’s failed policy and the numerous scandals surrounding the Olympic Games and all other aspects of Western-supervised world sport have already led to an active search for alternative formats for international tournaments,” it added
Right now, Kazan, one of Russia’s largest megacities, is hosting the fifth BRICS Sports Games, featuring teams and athletes from nearly one hundred countries. Russia says it ensured the highest level of preparation to host the competition, citing excellent sports, transport, and tourism infrastructure, and unparalleled security measures.
Russia maintains that it is quite possible that it, alongside other countries in the ever-expanding BRICS bloc, will eventually compete with the West and the IOC, to become the center of a renewed and revitalized Olympic movement.
