Sports Have the Power to Unite and Divide
Sports have united people across nations, languages, and cultures since the very first Olympic Games in ancient Greece. Yet what has the power to unite also, sadly, has the power to divide. Today, online hate, abuse, and targeted harassment too often turn moments of competition and celebration into hostility, escalating beyond the screen to damage careers, mental health, and even personal safety.
TrollWall AI was founded with the exact mission to combat this tide of toxicity. One of our most impactful works has been with the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF),the world’s sole governing body for ice hockey, representing 84 member countries and organizing 35-40 tournaments annually across every continent.
The Challenge: A Global Stage, a Global Target
IIHF’s events, from the Ice Hockey World Championship to youth tournaments in emerging hockey nations, draw in millions of passionate fans worldwide. But that passion also comes with challenges. Filip Nekola, IIHF’s Digital Content Manager, oversees a 12-person media team responsible for all online engagement across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and regional platforms like VK in Russia and Chinese social channels. Before TrollWall AI, community management was a mounting concern:
“We typically don't interact with people in comments… it seems like a waste of time because a lot of the community stuff… is just hate.”
- Too much hate to handle: Hate speech and politically charged comments, spiked especially post–Russia/Ukraine and other conflicts in the world.
- Targeted online abuse: Targeted hate toward referees, players, and coaches, threatening their mental wellbeing and tournament integrity.
- Spam bot attacks: Bots spreading illegal streaming links, phishing attempts, and scams.
As Filip told us, “We would need an army of people to take care of the comments, especially during the tournaments.” With team members working up to 16-hour a day during events, protecting IIHF’s brand and community required a smarter solution, both for the brand safety and the team’s mental health.
The TrollWall AI Solution
IIHF adopted TrollWall AI in mid-2024, first for its main channels, then expanding to additional event-specific accounts for men’s, women’s, and juniors’ tournaments. Our platform automates detection and removal of harmful content, filters evolving forms of hate and toxicity, even when disguised in GIFs, emojis, or different terms.
For IIHF, TrollWall AI delivered 4 key benefits:
- Time & Mental Energy Savings – Relieves the social media team from draining, repetitive tasks, giving the team more space for creative work during long tournament days.
- A Safer Digital Environment – Consistently shields fans, players, referees, officials, and partners from harmful or abusive content in real time.
- Scale without worry - Complements perfectly with IIHF new multi-channel strategy, enabling growth without multiplying moderation challenges.
- Protection of Commercial Rights – Removes illegal streaming links that threaten broadcasters’ investments and revenue.
Filip and his team fully entrusted TrollWall AI as IIHF brand’s security shield, checking our platform during tournaments, adjusting filters for new threats, and trusting the platform to handle the rest. Product features such as custom moderation, have been a standout advantage, especially when it comes to combating the evolving terms in toxic.
By automating moderation, IIHF freed its team to focus on creativity and content rather than manual moderation. TrollWall AI became an invisible but essential layer of protection, part of the federation’s broader brand safety ecosystem.
Filip’s verdict?
“I would definitely recommend TrollWall AI to the broader sports industry. It helps us a lot and it’s totally worth the investment.”
Filip Nekola, Digital Content Manager, IIHF
Brand Safety in the Sports Industry
Brand safety in the Sports industry goes far beyond protecting fans from offensive content. It is about preserving the integrity of the sport itself, ensuring that players, referees, officials, partners, and audiences can participate in an environment that is safe, respectful, and fair. For IIHF, this responsibility is formalized in their Integrity Program, one of the most comprehensive frameworks in international sport. It is built on four pillars: anti-doping, competition manipulation prevention, abuse and harassment protection, and ethics. In sports, hate will never disappear entirely, but the tools to manage it are evolving.
At TrollWall AI, we’re proud to stand with IIHF in defending the integrity of their brand, safeguarding the mental health of their community, and ensuring the conversation stays focused on what matters: the game.