Colapinto and Bortoleto welcome FIA’s revised online-abuse guidelines

Franco Colapinto and Gabriel Bortoleto have welcomed the FIA’s revised guidance on online abuse, both calling for the sport to keep improving its response.

The FIA unveiled its updated Online Community Guidelines alongside its United Against Online Abuse initiative during the São Paulo Grand Prix weekend on November 7. The framework classifies digital harm in seven categories, including toxic content, impersonation, surveillance and account lockout.

Colapinto said he had been fighting the issue hard this year and had already spoken enough about it. He still urged the F1 community to remain proactive and keep looking for ways to improve, rather than let the issue rest.

Bortoleto praised the FIA’s work and said drivers had been discussing the issue and that he saw progress. He described Colapinto as the more outspoken of the two. Constructive criticism was welcome, Bortoleto said, but threats and negative judgments were not.

He argued that people who threaten drivers online would not say the same things to them face to face, and called online abuse cowardly.

The abuse has also reached people around the drivers. Gasly, his family and girlfriend were understood to have received 13,000 death threats after Alpine ordered Colapinto to let Gasly past during the Spanish Grand Prix.

The FIA also uses automated moderation software such as Arwen.ai on its own channels to filter abusive comments directed at officials and participants in real time. Through United Against Online Abuse, it has built referral pathways with law enforcement to escalate the most serious threats and hate speech for prosecution.