A day after Leslie Jones complained to Twitter that she was being bombarded by racist
and offensive tweets, the social media site announced today it had
taken action against some users, which appears to include a permanent
suspension of conservative commentator Milo Yiannopoulos, who also
serves as Breitbart’s tech editor.
"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," Twitter wrote in a statement to ABC News. "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."
Breitbart, the conservative news and opinion website, confirmed that Yiannopoulos had been suspended in a report on its website.
In a statement to ABC News, Yiannopoulos denied any wrongdoing.
"I did nothing wrong. Twitter has suspended me without evidence of
wrongdoing and without explanation while allowing the most appalling
abuses to continue on its platform. This is political, plain and simple.
Leslie Jones ain't afraid of no ghost -- but evidently she's allergic
to bad reviews," he wrote.
He attacked Twitter as being biased toward certain viewpoints.
"My suspension has made one thing clear -- Twitter doesn't stand for
free speech. What they do stand for is a carefully crafted facade of
leftist approved ideas, and conservatives that don't stray too far from
safe (globalist) ideas. Like so many platforms before them, their
efforts to enforce groupthink will be their undoing," he said.
Because Yiannopoulos' account is no longer visible, it was unclear which of his tweets got his account suspended. But Breitbart posted a photo
of the suspension notice from Twitter to Yiannopoulos stating that the
account had been suspended "for repeated violations of Twitter Rules ...
specifically our rules prohibiting participating in or inciting
targeted abuse of individuals."
"Given that you have previously received repeated warnings for similar
violations, your account will not be restored," the message from Twitter
concludes.
On her Twitter feed, Jones said she had received a slew of offensive
emails from others, some likening her to "apes" and some with obscene
photos. First she tried blocking the abusive tweets, then she decided to
expose and report them. One of those she said she reported was
Yiannopoulos.
But even after fighting back, Jones, 48, announced Tuesday that she was leaving Twitter.
"I leave Twitter tonight with tears and a very sad heart," the SNL cast
member and star of the new "Ghostbusters" movie tweeted. "All this cause
I did a movie. You can hate the movie but the [s---] I got today.
Wrong."
When asked by ABC News for a response to Yiannopoulos' comments, Twitter
referred us back to its statement, which also includes a vow to do more
to curb what it called "abusive behavior."(abc)
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