Carlisle United returned to social media today - as they underlined the importance of the message behind football's three-day boycott.

The Blues were back on Twitter and Facebook after the sport-wide shutdown came to an end at 11.59pm last night.

It saw the Cumbrians resume their regular content on those channels, on which they have an audience of tens of thousands of people.

But United marked their comeback on the popular platforms by stressing the need for social media giants to do more to tackle online abuse.

Carlisle also say their decision to join their fellow clubs in temporary suspending their social media activity from 3pm last Friday - the shutdown meaning there was no social media content surrounding Saturday's 3-2 win at Leyton Orient - was supported by many of their fans.

United spokesman Andy Hall told the News & Star: "We said last week that [the boycott] was never going to be a solution, but it provided a powerful way for our national sport to unite and send a message to the social media providers that they have a duty to take responsibility.

"We thank the players, the staff and those business and local partners who joined with us. Together we have certainly raised awareness of an important issue.

"Our absence from these channels on a match day brought a lot of comment, but it was very supportive and understanding of the reasoning behind why the action was taken.

"We urge people to continue to report any form of discrimination or abuse wherever they see it.

"Quite simply put, it's unacceptable."

Head coach Chris Beech, asked about the boycott after Saturday's victory, said: "We don’t support any discriminative type behaviour in any source or code of anything.

"Of course - footballers standing together on it, Carlisle support that, well done to everybody."

United have followed their first tweet after the boycott - which underlined the message about stopping onlne abuse - with others regarding team matters, including comments from Beech and George Tanner, along with footage from Saturday's game, as well as news on the club's accounts.

The News & Star joined United in participating in the boycott as we held back from promoting our Carlisle United coverage on social media.

That has also now resumed in our Facebook group and on Twitter @joncolman.

EFL clubs today sent a collective message as they all returned to their social media platforms.

They called on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to "use their collective power to effect change and ensure there are real-life consequences for online hate".

They have also invited those companies to "respond to our requests for action".

Twitter told Sky Sports News last week that they were "resolute in our commitment" to make their platform a safe place for fans, players and everyone involved in the game.

They said they had removed over 30m offensive tweets about football since last September and had improved their "proactive measures"

Facebook, who also own Instagram, said they would "continue listening to feedback and fighting hate and racism on our platform" and work with UK police on hate speech.

They said they are providing new tools to help prevent people seeing abusive messages.