Indian app Pixstory to take the centre stage in Arsenal-ManU game

As all eyes lead to the Emirates Stadium in London for the much anticipated Arsenal versus Manchester United game on Sunday night, an Indian-origin social media application Pixstory is set to take the centre-stage.

In September last year, Pixstory had joined hands with European football major Arsenal as a social media partner to promote online ethical behaviour. On Sunday, NBA star and Pixstory brand ambassador Dwight Howard will kick off the proceedings with a pitch for a cleaner social media. This will be followed by more than 50,000 fans in the stadium using Pixstory clappers to make some noise and raise awareness against online hate.

Arsenal is perched comfortably at the top of the EPL table and is the frontrunner to win the Premier League this year. And thanks to its winning partnership with Pixstory, fans have another reason to cheer with an app that provides a new way to engage with each other online without having to worry about hate speech, a statement said. Using cutting-edge AI, Pixstory’s algorithms filter out hate speech, promoting decency in conversations and breaking the echo chambers that have formed on social media.

Apart from Arsenal, more marquee clubs including Juventus and PSG Feminines have partnered with Pixstory in its mission to build a better social media space. The app is collaborating with the Oxford Internet Institute on research towards building a safer and more collaborative social platform.

The brains behind Pixstory include Chris Mattmann, Chief Technology Officer at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and inventor of Apache Tika, a framework for content detection and analysis.

Pixstory’s focus is on zero tolerance for online toxicity. Its ecosystem is designed to actively reduce polarisation and disincentivise hate and misinformation. This is done through verification and integrity scores for accounts, ‘challenge and support’ functions that allow users to question or validate posts with rationale, and an AI system that detects context-based hate speech through a constantly evolving process.

The app’s global board includes Peter Watson, former chief of US International Development Finance Corporation; Koji Tsuruoka, Japan's former ambassador to the UK; and Cody Keenan, former speechwriter for President Barack Obama, among other illustrious personalities.