"I think harassment and social media go together": Mouratoglou feels that fan engagement is good but can become problematic

The former coach of Serena Williams, Patrick Mouratoglou thinks that social media and harassment simply go together as part of the deal of being a public figure.

Any athlete and most public persons have been subjected to harassment on social media. It's just something that is hard to avoid as Mouratoglou thinks that they go together. Many tennis players have opened up about the abuse they get on social media after losses however it's not largely related only to athletes, many prominent figures suffer from it.

On the topic, Mouratoglou said:

"I think harassment and social media go together, in general. That's probably the way people communicate today as it's more and more difficult to express an opinion as who you are because there is one way of thinking and if you don't have the same way of thinking as the immense majority, you are a bad person."

He continued:

"It affects tennis players, it affects all the people who are doing something as opposed to people who are not doing anything but criticizing," he added. "I think it's completely okay to have opinions and it's great. I never have a problem with people who express their opinions. Fans have opinions and it's great because they're engaged."

And added:

"What is not fine is when people say what is supposed to be the truth based on nothing, in an aggressive way. I like this quote from Gary Vaynerchuk. He says he feels for those people who are harassing others on social media because how miserable are they to have nothing else to do than take a fake name and go on social media just to insult or harass people. So you should feel sorry for them."