Twitter has permanently suspended Milo Yiannopoulos after Leslie Jones Ghostbusters abuse
Twitter has permanently suspended the account of Breitbart tech blog editor Milo Yiannopoulos, a day after the infamous internet troll helped incite his followers to send a torrent of racist abuse to Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones.
The expulsion of Yiannopoulos, who counted more than 300,000 followers on the service, comes just one day after he urged on a hateful mob that harassed ‘Ghostbusters’ actress Leslie Jones to the point that she quit Twitter.
Jones received a barrage sexist and racist messages from users, including fake messages made to look like they came from her account. With little way to fight back, she decided to quit the service on Monday “with tears and a very sad heart.”
When Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey responded to one of Jones’ tweets:
Milo then lost his verification badge (check logo), which Twitter typically gives to members of the media and celebrities, in January, which only seemed to amp up his interest in offending Twitter’s management and many who use the service.
Twitter confirmed that Yiannopoulos would be kept off its service for good in the future, telling BuzzFeed that it would find any new account he creates in the future, and suspend it.
In a statement, Twitter alluded about to the abuse directed at Leslie Jones, but didn't refer to Yiannopoulos directly. "People should be able to express diverse opinions and beliefs on Twitter," the statement reads. "But no one deserves to be subjected to targeted abuse online, and our rules prohibit inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others. Over the past 48 hours in particular, we've seen an uptick in the number of accounts violating these policies and have taken enforcement actions against these accounts, ranging from warnings that also require the deletion of Tweets violating our policies to permanent suspension."
U.S. Internet giants Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc., Google and Microsoft Corp. pledged to tackle online hate speech in less than 24 hours as part of a joint commitment with the European Union to combat the use of social media by terrorists.
The expulsion of Yiannopoulos, who counted more than 300,000 followers on the service, comes just one day after he urged on a hateful mob that harassed ‘Ghostbusters’ actress Leslie Jones to the point that she quit Twitter.
Jones received a barrage sexist and racist messages from users, including fake messages made to look like they came from her account. With little way to fight back, she decided to quit the service on Monday “with tears and a very sad heart.”
When Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey responded to one of Jones’ tweets:
Milo then lost his verification badge (check logo), which Twitter typically gives to members of the media and celebrities, in January, which only seemed to amp up his interest in offending Twitter’s management and many who use the service.
Twitter I understand you got free speech I get it. But there has to be some guidelines when you let spread like that. You can see on the— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 19, 2016
Twitter confirmed that Yiannopoulos would be kept off its service for good in the future, telling BuzzFeed that it would find any new account he creates in the future, and suspend it.
In a statement, Twitter alluded about to the abuse directed at Leslie Jones, but didn't refer to Yiannopoulos directly. "People should be able to express diverse opinions and beliefs on Twitter," the statement reads. "But no one deserves to be subjected to targeted abuse online, and our rules prohibit inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others. Over the past 48 hours in particular, we've seen an uptick in the number of accounts violating these policies and have taken enforcement actions against these accounts, ranging from warnings that also require the deletion of Tweets violating our policies to permanent suspension."
U.S. Internet giants Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc., Google and Microsoft Corp. pledged to tackle online hate speech in less than 24 hours as part of a joint commitment with the European Union to combat the use of social media by terrorists.
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