Rose McGowan’s Twitter was suspended, because we’re living in Peak 2017

Los Angeles premiere of The Orchard’s DIOR & I

Rose McGowan has been outspoken – up to a point – about how she was violated and what was done to her by Harvey Weinstein. She actually hasn’t ever specifically written or said the words “Harvey Weinstein raped me” because (I believe) she’s still afraid that Weinstein will sue her for breaching what is probably an iron-clad NDA. But she’s been extremely active in other ways, mostly on Twitter. You can see her Twitter here – her tweets are still up. But they might not be for long, because Twitter has temporarily suspended her account. For real.

Rose McGowan’s Twitter account has been suspended for violating Twitter’s rules, McGowan said in an Instagram post.

“TWITTER HAS SUSPENDED ME,” she wrote. “THERE ARE POWERFUL FORCES AT WORK. BE MY VOICE. #ROSEARMY.”

The actress has been vocal on the platform in recent days regarding the recent sexual harassment allegations surrounding Harvey Weinstein. She settled with Weinstein in 1997.

She called Ben Affleck a liar on Tuesday, as well as telling him to “f— off,” after he stated that he had no knowledge of Weinstein’s activities, and posted several tweets encouraging her followers to sign a petition to dissolve the board of The Weinstein Company, which she alleges had knowledge of Weinstein’s behavior.

McGowan will not have access to her account for 12 hours. Twitter provided no specific instances of her rule violation, but stated that she can delete the tweets that violate its rules to gain access to her account more quickly. According to Twitter’s website, the platform “may suspend an account if it has been reported to us as violating our Rules surrounding abuse. When an account engages in abusive behavior, like sending threats to others or impersonating other accounts, we may suspend it temporarily or, in some cases, permanently.”

[From Variety]

This makes me sick and sad. WTF Twitter? I’ve been checking Rose’s Twitter feed all week, and while she’s calling people out by name, she hasn’t been wrong about any of it. I don’t get how Agent Orange threatening nuclear war and bullying private citizens is somehow A-OK for the Twitter platform (as in, his account has not ever been suspended) but a rape victim using the platform to inform and engage people about sexual assault and harassment is somehow a suspend-able offense? All of those Russian bots get to spam everybody, and the Alt-Right d-bags get to use the platform unchecked, but a woman talking about sexual assault? *clutches pearls* Also: since I’ve been checking on her feed all week, I know that she’s gotten into it with some high-profile Deplorables, like some douche journo from Townhall who was literally tweeting at Rose to mock her for being raped. She’s been dealing with those kinds of f–kers, and I wonder if one of them complained/whined and that’s why her account was suspended. In any case, none of this is a good look, @jack and @twitter.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

78 Responses to “Rose McGowan’s Twitter was suspended, because we’re living in Peak 2017”

Comments are Closed

We close comments on older posts to fight comment spam.

  1. Nicole says:

    Right but trump can tweet us to the brink of war and the KKK can plan rallies.
    Facebook does this too. There’s no allies in this fight especially the supposedly woke liberals.
    I hate everything

    • Shambles says:

      Same. I swear to god I’m about to pour myself a glass of wine before 8 am. Everything sucks and an admitted sexual predator is president and still has a Twitter account which he uses to incite violence and bully black people but LOL rape victims should have their twitter accounts suspended.

      This just shows us how powerful the Hollywood patriarchy machine still is, even as Harvey is “seeking treatment.” Also f*ck Twitter. We should boycott, seriously. I deleted my account after the creepy tweeter was elected, and now I will never go back. I’m about to get on Twitter’s Instagram page and tell them exactly what I think of this bullsh!t

      • Nicole says:

        Not even just Hollywood it’s everyone. Somehow butthurt Nazis can get victims of their smear campaigns suspended easily. I’ve seen it happen to activists I follow over and over.
        But the heads of twitter and facebook would have you believe they are allies. Not in practice they aren’t

      • Yellowrocket says:

        This has been the most exhausting week since the election. Again, it just gives me the overwhelming realisation that the world doesn’t trust women.

        I have to physically brace myself before opening news sites or social media sites and I’m trying to avoid comment sections on the likes of tmz/dm, but to be honest, even the comment sections of the nyt and new Yorker are filled with hate for women who dare to complain about misogynist treatment and abuse.

        And what makes it worse is that it’s not just men attacking women, it’s other women too.

      • Megan says:

        WTF? I report Trump tweets all the damn time. Why isn’t his account suspended?

      • Sunglasses Aready says:

        @ Shambles. Thank God there are others out there. I thought I was alone. Whilst Trump is in the White House I will not use Twitter.

        God Bless, Rose McGowan, THEY ALL KNEW about Harvey, perhaps not in-depth details, but they all knew.

    • Sixer says:

      I find Facebook to be even worse than Twitter. It’s a horribly misogynistic platform. Whenever a row over issues breaks out with men on one side and women on the other, it’s women who get thrown into Facebook jail. I rarely go there for that reason, beyond a hop in to say hi to relatives and a hop straight back out again.

      • Honeybee Blues says:

        A bit more than a year ago, I was suspended by FB because I used the same name as I do here. My actual first name is in my handle, but FB wouldn’t let me access my account until I PHOTOGRAPHED MY ID AND EMAIL IT TO THEM!!! That didn’t happen. I knew folks on FB who had fucking symbols as their tag, but I was suspended for not using my full legal name. I explained that I am known professionally (in the Blues world) as Honeybee Blues, which is also the name of my blog. All this happened right after the GOP primary when I was spending as much time as I could detailing 45s every flaw/crime/etc. to keep this asshat out of the Oval. I knew then why I was being suspended. I’ve not been back.

      • QueenB says:

        Twitter is mostly trash but next to facebook its intellectual central.

      • Sixer says:

        I’m sorry that happened to you, Honeybee but sadly, I am not surprised it did.

      • Honeybee Blues says:

        Thanks, Sixer. I thought about writing to Zuckerberg. “How DARE you insult my mother like this! She did NOT raise a fool.” Send in my ID indeed.

      • Sophia's Side eye says:

        Honeybee, the same thing happened to me, Facebook wanted a copy of my ID. I sent them my profile pic, and said my name was the same as my handle, which is my first and middle name. They never suspended my account and I never heard from them about it again. That was about three years ago, no way was I sending them my ID, they must be crazy.

        I haven’t been back to Facebook since the election, it’s a cesspool full of ignoramuses who are convinced they’re geniuses.

    • whatWHAT? says:

      And Trump actually said “F*** YOU MICHAEL RAPPAPORT” on twitter…so why is he still on?

      to add, can you IMAGINE the pearl-clutching from Hannity et al if Obama had gone after all his critics in the same way Trump has? It would be all “a president shouldn’t be so vulgar” and “doesn’t he have more important things to be doing?” but with the orange turd, they applaud him for “fighting back” and “setting the record straight”. UGH.

      Second edit: OK, so apparently people are saying that tweet was fake?…not sure, though…

  2. happyoften says:

    Gotta love the smell of Patriarchy first thing in the morning. Smells…. just like it always has. Bizarrely terrified.

    • AnnaKist says:

      It really is (like?) a conspiracy against women who stand up for themselves. Not even boycotting these platforms is of any use. Most people are so reliant on and addicted to social media that just thinking about shutting their accounts down gives them apoplexy. How many people would actually boycott these companies and/or their advertisers, in support of women like Rose McGowan? Of course many would, but nowhere near enough for it to have any effect. The trouble is, when push comes to shove, most people are unwilling to take a stand, and will only react if something is affecting them. It’s very disheartening. I’m so glad I’ve never had any social media.

      • Betsy says:

        I don’t think you mean to be dismissive, but you understand that many small businesses – including women-owned ones – rely on these platforms. I, too, would suffer apoplexy if I were blocked and it harmed my business.

        Also, why should little boys get to have online spaces as safe spaces, too?

      • AnnaKist says:

        Of course, you’re right, Betsy. Some of my female (and male) friends use social media for their businesses, too. I just meant that it’s nigh impossible to get to the bigwigs at the top who make these stupid, hypocritical rules. Sorry, I’m not expressing myself very well today.

  3. Veronica says:

    Can we be over Twitter already. The owners are jackasses.

    • Astrid says:

      +1

    • passerby says:

      Totally! I quit Twitter back in 2013. Every now and then I will pull it up, if I’m watching a show and want to know what the peep are saying ( you don’t need an acct to do this)

      This is a really shitty move for them. They don’t care how this makes them look. I think women need to stop going, if only for a day, to show the impact it will have.

  4. lower case lois says:

    So this week Jemele Hill was suspended from ESPN and Rose McGowan was suspended from Twitter. The world loves to punish outspoken women and encourage misogynistic men to do and say whatever they want on Twitter and the media.

    • InVain says:

      I know we’re upset about Jemele but these are different situations and circumstances. Jemele knowingly violated her employment contract with ESPN. There’s a track record of them doing this to other employees for similar violations. She pushed the envelope – right or wrong. Twitter suspending Rose is just straight up hypocritical and disgusting.

  5. Mia4s says:

    She’s back up but that email mentioning Bob Weinstein seems to be done. Do NOT trust him.

  6. Cbould says:

    Thank you Rose 🌹 Your courage & tenacity inspires

  7. slowsnow says:

    Rules of Twitter:
    – you can start a war
    – you can be racist
    – you can’t happily (huge snark) reminisce about your own abuse

    • Alix says:

      My guess is she technically got blocked over using naughty language to people. Wake me up when they block people for rampant stupidity/recklessness (see: U Bum).

    • lucy2 says:

      You can also harass people and post their personal info too, apparently. Lots of abuse on that platform, amazing that Rose is the one they chose to temporarily suspend.

  8. Maya says:

    Of course it was – men can never handle a woman speaking up. It’s their biggest fear..

  9. Rapunzel says:

    The silencing shows major forces are trying to stop the damage from spreading to all Hollywood. This is so disgusting. Tweet your outrage.

    • Snazzy says:

      So I just went on Twitter to Tweet my outrange 🙂
      Seems it has now been fixed, and her account restored

  10. Bucketbot says:

    Business ia always more important to twitter. That’s why tRump gets full access to twitter even though he abuses, threatens, spreads violence through twitter. They get more business every time he tweets. Its programmed into their system to exempt trump (and god alone knows who else connected to him) from suspension. If there is a campaign and subsequent action to boycott twitter by a decent numbers, you’ll get to watch how twitter scums squirm.

  11. Brandi says:

    I love Rose. I’ve been following her for the last couple of years on Instagram. She has every right to speak out about what has happened to her.

  12. So a strong woman, who is trying to fight a misogynistic system built on violence and abuse by calling out the system’s perpetrators is silenced but violent warmongers and racist vulgarians can tweet whatever disgusting rhetoric they please with no consequence? What world are we living in right now?

  13. Margo S. says:

    Is it the tweet where she told Ben to fcuk off? Seriously Twitter?!?! What the hell is wrong with you?! This is so messed up on so many levels. I love rose. She’s been my idol since Jawbreaker. Loved that movie.

  14. Serene Wolf says:

    I’m angry with myself for being scared.
    I SHOULD’NT be. It’s such a blatant, misogynistic reaction. It seems nothing has really changed. Women have just been placated into thinking so.

  15. Jess says:

    Everything just sucks.

  16. teacakes says:

    I just….. no words.

  17. Harrierjet says:

    It’s interesting that you speak about ironclad NDAs – I feel like a lot has still been sealed up and people are still very fearful. I was watching a discussion about this on BBC news the other day and I was struck with how the journalist – Clive Myrie kept reminding the interviewee not to mention names, and spoke very hesitantly – as in the BBC seemed extremely concerned about lawsuits, and I don’t think I have ever seen that concern so blatantly before.

    • bros says:

      I heard an interview on NPR with a lawyer who said that some of these NDAs might not even be enforceable in court. I wish McGowan would just spew and let Harvey try to come for her. There’s a good chance a court would throw out any attempt to sue her, and anyway, it’s not like he has a leg to stand on now. NDA’s are rarely enforced-they’re just boogeymen. He threatened to sue the NYT but now he’s flown off to Europe in his private jet for sex addiction rehab (AKA: sexual assault/rape rehab) and there’s no way in hell he is suing anyone at this point. his goose is cooked.

      • swak says:

        Didn’t go to Europe. Think it’s Arizona now. Same place Tiger Woods went.

      • Nicole (the Cdn One) says:

        I don’t propose to know the law in the US, but in Canada, the NDA would be enforced with respect to disclosing to the media or publishing anything covered and at a minimum would result in forfeiture of the monies paid. Most likely she’d also be responsible for his legal costs of the lawsuit and could possibly be subject to a damages award. The fact that he is scum doesn’t negate the legality of an NDA.

  18. Adrien says:

    I’m not surprised. The latest Buzzfeed expose by Joseph Bernstein on the alt-right claims Milo has Twitter fans. Twitter allows terfs and transphobic cis to harass transgender people. They are not even suspending accounts who post pictures of transgender children in their effort to publicy shame the parents.

    • Trashaddict says:

      Good reason to boycott Twitter. I knew there was a reason I do not subscribe to these platforms.

  19. STRIPE says:

    I stopped using twitter years ago and suggest everyone do the same. It is a megaphone for the worst of the worst of terrible trolls. Don’t give them your traffic/data.

    • kimbers says:

      I quit Twitter in 2011 and dont miss it. it was just annoying how vicious people were. u do see ppl reference tweets on shows and I’m always thinking, “do people not live life anymore?!?!?!”

  20. Annabelle Bronstein says:

    And THIS is reason number 11,999 why women don’t speak up.

    • Adele Dazeem says:

      Yup. That is what I came on here to say. You’ve got to have a strong, strong foundation and sense of self—and terribly thick skin—to withstand your inevitable harassment if you do speak up. Few people are built this way, and frankly and quite harshly, after you’ve been a victim of some form of harassment/attack, you’re feeling weakened to begin with.

      The world sucks. I don’t know how to compromise this in my head today.

  21. kibbles says:

    This is why I don’t use Twitter and Instagram. I hate the fact that I am on Facebook, but that’s the only social media platform I’ve chosen to use to interact with a limited number of friends. Women need to ditch Twitter if they are going to suspend McGowan but not Trump. I don’t even see why Twitter is so popular? It’s not a good platform to write more than a limited number of characters at a time. Ridiculous.

  22. Susanne says:

    I’m not a social media user, but I would love for someone to start a ‘name your harasser/abuser/rapist’ thing. If every person who has experienced this did so, the twatt3r would explode.

  23. detritus says:

    So, Jack Dorsey, I guess you’ve decided what side you are on.

    His twitter is @jack
    https://twitter.com/jack?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

    • The Other Katherine says:

      Tweet to @biz too. He’s been busy whining about how everybody “piles on” because they, you know, are abysmal failures at keeping their platform from being hijacked as a delivery system for heinous abuse by Nazis, racists, and misogynists.

    • Fergus says:

      Just FYI:

      when you copy/paste a url, you can delete everything after the “?.” The ? + string of text just tells us how you got to the url. So I see you googled it. 🙂 (“?ref_src=” means it’s referred from the source of….).

      • Fergus says:

        I know this is OT, but just wanted to point out because it’ll make your url’s much shorter and help when they sometimes line break and become unclickable.

  24. ell says:

    the lot on twitter are cowards, only interested in money. it’s one of the many reasons why i refuse to take part in social media.

    so proud of rose mcgowan and all these women having the courage to speak about their experience.

  25. angie0717 says:

    Team Rose. Fight the fight. Open another profile ‘Rose McGowan 2’ until they suspend that one too. And another ‘Rose McGowan 3’ and so on until Twitter is worn down by their humiliating, despicable “rules” that seem to only apply to a woman who survived Harvey Weinstein and his gaggle of dangerous enablers.

  26. noway says:

    Does anyone know which tweet it is and what rule she violated? I have often wondered why they haven’t suspended Trump’s twitter account. It seems to me some of his tweets have to violate their rules. I want Rose to tell us which one and why, then we all need to scour Trump’s feed or any of these other creeps and turn them in. You know why Trump didn’t really go full out on Weinstein was because they are birds of a feather, and probably compared notes. Both are New Yorkers of power from Queens. Also, anyone notice how Don Jr. shut up about this lately. Daddy told him to shut up it hit too close to home. Let’s get all of these creeps out there.

    • KBB says:

      According to Twitter she posted the private phone number of someone. They said they reinstated her account once that tweet was deleted. I’m not sure what tweet they were referring to though or when she tweeted it.

  27. Nina says:

    I was very much anti-Twitter until this year. A couple of months ago, I decided to start using an account I abandoned almost 10 years ago. My depression got really bad this year, my ED came back with a vengeance, and I just decided that I needed to follow a load of comedians/comedy writers to bring a little levity into my life. And I kinda get why people are so into it, now. While there’s so much garbage going on in the world, there are also a lot of cool people (men, too!) out there who’ve got our backs. I’m heartened to see so many men who aren’t at all reluctant to call out toxic masculinity when they see it and help spread awareness of issues that face women and POC.

    • Brittney B says:

      Yeah, I’ve been using it again too, after many many years of *maybe* one post a year. When people post screenshots of funny, scathing tweets, I track down the users and follow them. So many enlightened, witty people with brief but pitch-perfect takes on current events.

  28. siri says:

    Does anyone really believe some twitter user reported her for ‘violating the rules’? Looks to me like somebody just made a phone call…

  29. Greenie says:

    Ugh. The social media boys are the current face of tech. Rather than the nerdy types who grew to be annoying when they got money, this batch with its many frat boys and brogrammers started off that way. Harvey and his Hollywood cadre would have no problem finding their pressure points and making them heel.

    Next time Rose gets banned, we should hashtag the shit out of Dorsey and tell him that his donations to the Democrats and the ACLU don’t mean as much when he shuts down women like Rose who just want to tell the world the truth.

  30. why? says:

    Twitter won’t suspend Donald Trump, who openly bullies anyone who disagrees with him, incites violence, promotes racism, and makes threats, but they suspend Rose M? What world are we living in?

  31. Lilly says:

    Eff the patriarchy.

  32. BP says:

    This makes me sick. What the eff is wrong with the all the misogynistic loving idiots controlling social media??

    • Jayna says:

      From the Washington Post.

      “Later, in a tweeted statement, Twitter explained that “her account was temporarily locked because one of her Tweets included a private phone number, which violates our Terms of Service,”

      • ANOTHER DAY says:

        I’m following Rose and her posts closely. This explanation makes sense and is now part of her feed as well,

        The Twitter explanation makes it clear it supports Ms McGowan and her “speaking truth to power.”

        I’m sure the temporary suspension was annoying, it certainly came at a volatile time period which was sure to enflame.

        But not tweeting personal phone numbers is a legit policy and it’s consistent application is critical, so yeah….I get it,

        Rock on. #RosesArmy

      • Julianna says:

        Suspending accounts for tweeting people’s private numbers and home addresses is pretty much the one thing Twitter is consistent about. Some users get around it by doing it in code, and others have tiny accounts that are only viewed by likeminded people so there’s no one to report it, but when widely followed people blatantly just post that information, their accounts are suspended immediately.

        I get that the optics are terrible, but there’s no conspiracy here. She tweeted a private number, and got suspended. Twitter is super clear that that’s exactly what will happen if you tweet a private number. And again, I get that it sucks in this case, but that’s really, really not a rule anyone should want them relaxing.

  33. Mrs.Krabapple says:

    One of Twitter’s largest shareholders is a Saudi prince. They’re not exactly known for supporting women’s rights. As for Facebook, I’ve said for years that Zuckerberg’s taking the company public THE DAY BEFORE HIS WEDDING was a big middle finger to his wife. He could have done it earlier so that wasn’t the primary thing everyone was thinking and talking about on her day. But, I’m not surprised. Even in this day and age most companies and CEOs do not support women.

    • Brittney B says:

      …or maybe they planned it that way together, so that the wedding was as low-key and private as possible? It was a surprise wedding, even. Everyone thought it was her graduation party. Does not sound like a woman who expected the world to stop turning for her big walk down the aisle.

      • Julianna says:

        Zuckerberg planned it that way so his Facebook stock wouldn’t be considered community property. So long as he keeps it seperate from any joint accounts they may have, under California law in the event of a divorce his wife has zero claim on any wealth generated from that stock.

      • Courtney says:

        Wow. Nothing says “till death do us part” like protecting your assets.

      • Mrs.Krabapple says:

        I don’t blame him for wanting to protect his pre-marital assets (let’s be real, his money is the only reason a woman would want marry him). What makes him a jerk in my eyes is that he did it THE DAY BEFORE THE WEDDING, so that was the main thing on everyone’s minds — including, I am sure, their guests. He could have done it earlier so that it had time to die down before the nuptials, but no . . . (Btw, George Lucas did the exact same thing).

  34. Rebecca says:

    Nope. This sounds like something Ben Affleck would have his people do. My monies on him being the one who ultimately got her account suspended.