Twitter is officially amping up security on harassment.
On Tuesday, the social media site permanently banned conservative writer and self-proclaimed “fabulous supervillain on the internet” Milo Yiannopoulos — in addition to other user accounts — for his role in the horrific online bullying of Leslie Jones.
In case you’re not familiar, Milo was known by the handle @Nero and is the technology editor for Breitbart.com. He had over 338,000 followers before his account was deleted for seemingly racist and degrading tweets.
Just a side note, this is the guy who says “feminism is cancer” and “Rape Culture and Harry Potter: Both Fantasy.” Sigh.
Anyway, as we reported, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted directly to Leslie on Monday in an effort put a stop to the racist harassment she was receiving — abuse that was being encouraged on Yiannopoulos’ timeline.
Related: Leslie Calls Out Designers For Refusing To Dress Her!
Here is Twitter’s statement in full in regards to their decision:
“People should be able to express diverse opinions and beliefs on Twitter. 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.
We know many people believe we have not done enough to curb this type of behavior on Twitter. We agree. We are continuing to invest heavily in improving our tools and enforcement systems to better allow us to identify and take faster action on abuse as it’s happening and prevent repeat offenders. We have been in the process of reviewing our hateful conduct policy to prohibit additional types of abusive behavior and allow more types of reporting, with the goal of reducing the burden on the person being targeted. We’ll provide more details on those changes in the coming weeks.”
Seems like a good effort to begin eliminating so much hate online, right?
Well, this whole ordeal has sparked a war on free speech and a conversation under the hashtag #FreeMilo as to why the social media forum bans some controversial accounts and not others.
Milo has been taking to other platforms since the ban to say:
“With the cowardly suspension of my account, Twitter has confirmed itself as a safe space for Muslim terrorists and Black Lives Matter extremists, but a no-go zone for conservatives. Twitter is holding me responsible for the actions of fans and trolls using the special pretzel logic of the left. Where are the Twitter police when Justin Bieber‘s fans cut themselves on his behalf? Like all acts of the totalitarian regressive left, this will blow up in their faces, netting me more adoring fans. We’re winning the culture war, and Twitter just shot themselves in the foot.
This is the end for Twitter. Anyone who cares about free speech has been sent a clear message: you’re not welcome on Twitter.”
During yesterday’s Gays for Trump party at the RNC in Cleveland, Milo sarcastically addressed the crowd:
“What I want to talk to you about is the culture war, and having just gotten suspended from Twitter, they say permanently, permanently, for getting in a fight with a black ghostbuster. What a humiliating end to a wonderful run. It could at least be getting into a fight with somebody serious, but no. No. It was the tertiary star of a f*cking terrible feminist flop. What was I thinking?”
Eep.
We’re hoping to see all of this be resolved peacefully, as it’s more than clear that fighting hate with hate isn’t the answer.
What do U think of all this, Perezcious readers?? Leave your two cents in the comments!!
[Image via Facebook.]
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