Earlier this week, Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones revealed that she was the target of racist, sexist abuse on Twitter, some of it shockingly mean, low and disgusting. Leslie retweeted some of the worst abuse, which included users comparing her to animals, calling her names and even people posing as her to insult others. Leslie highlighted a real problem with Twitter – the ability for racists and a-holes to hide behind anonymous usernames to harass other users. Twitter has done little to address this issue, but after Leslie brought it to national attention they’re finally cracking down. Twitter banned one of the most prominent and worst trolls, a Brietbart editor named Milo Yiannopoulos (who incidentally was leading a “gays for Trump” event at the RNC yesterday – you can’t make this up). They also issued a statement saying that they are aware of this problem and are working to address it:
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.
[Twitter statement via Hollywood Reporter]
Twitter is FINALLY doing something about this problem they’ve had for years. Better late than never I guess and at least they’re no longer nonchalant about it. Yiannopoulos, the troll who seems to have been one of the leaders on the attack against Jones, has also issued a statement about free speech and left wing conspiracies and Muslims or something. You can read it on THR. Free speech does not mean that companies have to give every person with bigoted views a platform. That’s not how it works.
So many people on Twitter have rallied behind Jones using the hashtag #LoveForLeslie. People Magazine has a nice overview of some of the celebrity tweets. They also have extensive quotes from Dan Aykroyd, who made a cameo in Ghostbusters (as did most of the other original castmembers). Aykroyd spoke to ET Canada about the trolls bothering Leslie:
“These people, they’re insignificant gnats, they’re losers, they have no lives of their own, they can probably barely pay for the wifi they’re using.
“I would say you’re looking at obese white men between 50 and 60 who are active Klan members or member of the Aryan Nation and there are millions of them.
“I’m afraid to say that that contingency will be voting for the republican ticket, pretty much that’s what the statistics are indicating, that there’s a lot of white racist hatred out there that’s going to channel into a support for the republican ticket, maybe in the false belief that these people share their views.”
Normally I would not get behind an ad hominem attack, but these people deserve it. Aykroyd went on to say that he doesn’t think Trump and Pence “are as racist as the people who attacked Leslie Jones,” but truly that’s not saying much. He also suspects Trump is playing up his racism to attract those type of lowlife people to vote for him.
Jones has not yet returned to Twitter but I hope she sees all the people who are sending her love and support.
A lil PSA about the Right to Free Speech. Milo's rights aren't being violated. Keep him off Twitter!#LoveForLeslie pic.twitter.com/GOzyRA2XIj
— Jenna Hallquist (@Synnister) July 20, 2016
Leslie Jones is one of the greatest people I know. Any personal attacks against her are attacks against us all. #LoveForLeslieJ @Lesdoggg
— Paul Feig (@paulfeig) July 18, 2016
#LoveForLeslieJ. Keep your head up and shine mama! @Lesdoggg
— Jada Pinkett Smith (@jadapsmith) July 19, 2016
Thank goodness! Twitter should have started dealing with the hate and trolls years ago.
Right? Good for Leslie for broadcasting how people are allowed to be so abusive on Twitter. Glad Twitter finally did something. Milo is a piece of work anyways. He should be banned from all social media.
Better late than never. I stopped going to Twitter because it got so ugly. Think I will make an exception today and tweet #LoveforLeslie.
If you think Milo was bad, Leslie had said some pretty nasty, racist and violent comments herself on twitter. Everything from whopping Justin Bieber, saying white girls look alike, and retweeting tweets for her mob to attack. She is not completely innocent. She’s also a grown woman.
The #FreeMilo hashtag is more about the cherry picking of people being banned. There are still so many active accounts calling for the killing of cops and plenty of foreign accounts communicating in Arabic calling for death of Americans.
There’s not doubt Milo is a mean person, but he does back his debates with facts and statistics. Banning him will only increase his following.
Exactly ^^^. Agree 100% with everything you’ve said.
Amen. The issue isn’t about Milo’s trolling. It’s the inconsistency of Twitter who ban some and applaud others for hate.
Milo is bad. He has said some hateful, distusting things, and should be banned from Twitter for hate speech.
Leslie Jones is in no way worse than that POS.
Nothing that Leslie Jones has said would qualify as hate speech, afaik, and nothing she has said would ever make it acceptable for people to abuse her, call her a animal, call her ugly, send her racist videos, or any of the other treatment she has received.
I agree with you insofar as the Twitter inconsistency. I do not think Jones is hateful – perhaps some bad jokes. However, Twitter needs to be consistent. Twitter only threatened a liberal GQ writer with account suspension after he tweeted that he wanted to beat a woman speaking at the RNC to death (quite literally). He still has an account and is still tweeting (he deleted the tweet and apologized, but still). I dislike Milo, but he does have a valid point there. That’s why I think Twitter made a big error by banning him.
ah, look … it´s logicandresearch the author of “how to derail a conversation for beginners”
You talking about those tweets that were mocked up to look like she wrote them that she called out? Statistics and facts my eye.
>>but he does back his debates with facts and statistics<<
Er….do you really want to be the person that defends Milo? That's just scary.
Great post LogicandResearch, I agree with everything you said.
@LogicandResearch – you mean the fake tweets that the trolls mocked up and passed around?
You think we won’t remember who you people are, but we will. We see you and we remember.
The thing that gets me is she was dealing with racist trolls yet Taylor was IMMEDIATELY able to get trending topics removed and emojis removed from IG. So yea shame on twitter and IG for that crap
I was going to say the same thing.
To add, the most prominent troll involved in this (Milo Yiannopoulos as mentioned in the post) had also been involved in GamerGate, where several women in the gaming industry were harassed on Twitter as well. Why were these people not dealt with before?
That guy has a lot of self hate issues, and it’s amazing such a psychopath gets a platform and following.
His supporters are trying to blame homophobia for his Twitter banning. It’s… something.
I saw they banned that awful Milo this morning. And, having being trolled history in the #gamergate fiasco, thought I’d see if the hashtag was still being monitored by his deeply unpleasant acolytes. Said something like “Wasn’t that Milo bloke something to do with #gamergate? Can’t remember now.” Within minutes, dozens of block quote retweets (the ones that invite pile-ons) about stinky vadges, recommendations for psychiatric meds and more that I wouldn’t repeat here.
Replied to all with a couple of kisses and a smiley emoji (yes, I used an emoji, much to my own disgust). I find this annoys them further. Now ignoring.
These dreadful people are just unable to shut the eff up, aren’t they?
I just don’t understand how anybody’s thinking could become so twisted.
Because some people are simply hateful and looking for a place to let it all out. Twitter has been letting them so that’s where they go. Some people really get off on the adrenaline that comes from getting worked up in their own hate. Sad, but true. It’s like a drug to them.
Yeah Lainy just brought up similar points. I just hope Leslie keeps shining, I love her talent and energy. She killing that cover of Elle.
Just read that as well. So so so depressing, who we choose to protect as a society and who we choose to ignore/throw to the wolves. 🙁
Twitter and Instagram are totally different companies. If Swift was able to scrub Twitter it would be a different story. Privilege is real and I see that point, but ultimately these are two different corporations, the technology is different and users on Instagram can delete their own comments if they want. It doesn’t work that way on Twitter and Instagram may just be better at doing whatever users request.
Ah, thank you for pointing that out-for some reason I thought both had happened on Twitter.
Trending topics WAS twitter though which is why I made that statement. People were commenting in real time sunday how trending topics were being removed
Apparently its only on Taylor account the snake emojis keeps disappearing.. From what people are saying Taylors fans are still spamming Calvin, Katy and Kims instagram with snake emojiis. If this is correct then it seems instagram has given special privileges to Taylor in particular.
And yes as Alex are saying trending topics is a twitter thing.
Thanks Alex and Mira I didn’t know this was happening on Twitter trending topics for Swift too. That’s definitely different.
It’s about damn time that Twitter does something to get rid of the racist a$$hats spewing their hate and ignorance.
The problem is that they don’t. They did in this case because Jones made the stuff public and complained pretty loudly – which is her right. But there are still plenty of nasty pieces of work out there, including white supremacists, who are allowed to stay and say whatever they want. Twitter has never, ever been consistent with policing itself, which is part of the problem. Everybody on Twitter should be afforded the same protections as Jones, but the company generally doesn’t behave that way.
They really suck at the self policiing. I remember when the nude hack happened and twitter was all “you need to report” when people were spreading those around on Twitter. At first I was avoiding it but then I just closed my eyes to try and report every handle I could. But really they should have this sorted by now.
But considering all platforms (FB, IG and twitter) seem to be quick to delete pages and images of breastfeeding or other innocuous images or posts they sure love to keep misogynistic, racist a$$hats on their platform
I agree. By placing the burden on users to self-report, they basically say “well, we can’t remove it if you don’t report it!” Instagram bans certain hashtags from being used, and twitter could do the same. Would that stop it? No – but it would make hateful content harder to find. They could also cooperate with law enforcement when threats and abuse become real issues. Right now, you generally need a subpoena before Twitter will release any data about a user. They could send a strong message by saying “We cooperate fully with law enforcement in matters of threats and harassment.” That would go a long way. A lot of people have complained that Twitter tends to take the side of abusers in legal matters because they get that anonymity increases their user base.
At the end of the day, Twitter is a business. It cares for it’s bottom line more than any individual on its service. Leslie Jones shined a light on the abuse it enables, and they had to address it. But I wish it didn’t take Jones to make a change.
I lost count of all the hateful comments I got on Twitter (after Brexit, me being EU citizen) but any time I complained to them, they did something. Whilst I got death threats, insults and racist remarks on Facebook and… well I had to delete the account altogether because the answer I always got was “it is not breaking our guidelines’. Sod Facebook, it’s the worst!
It also took a white male to create a hashtag in support of her for them to do squat. F Twitter.
–TheRealPinky
But he didn’t. A black woman who goes by the handle T’Challah created it. It gained steam when Paul Fieg tweeted it because he’s far more visible. But it was not his creation.
Yup, not crowning this man a hero for letting his human decency depend on public outrage.
I’m glad they did something. But, there’s a lot of hate speech they let through consistently. And that’s a valid criticism towards them from Milo’s supporters – they pick and choose rather than having a consistent stance.
I love how it basically takes incessant, ugly racist abuse directed towards her and Twitter takes a few days to say “Okay, like we’re working on it and stuff” and yet when people tweeted about Taylor Swift with multiple snake emojis, they were right on top of it with “You can’t have more than 26 snake emojis in your tweets!!!”. That’s the playing field out there.
Not to mention, all of this hatred just because of a frigging MOVIE???
All of this hatred because of a comedy movie about ghosts. It really freaks me out to see how many men really hate women. And it terrifies me to see that in 2016 there is still SO. MUCH. HATE for people of color.
And keep in mind — the same ones who send out hate and harassment are the first ones to complain about people getting “too easily offended”. As if spewing bile at strangers is not a reflection of being offended.
my mom loves her and so do I!
“He also suspects Trump is playing up his racism to attract those type of lowlife people to vote for him” >>>> There’s actually something BEYOND VILE to use “racism” as TOOL rather than actually believing in it.
But here we are. In 2016.
Worked for Tricky Dick Nixon. It’ll work for Tricky Trump.
–TheRealPinky
True, it is an often used political device. I think Trump is a piece of work who exhibited marks of an elitest. He may be racially suspect but not an out and out racist; however, he knew that revving it up would pull out the crazies in the party.
If it walks like a duck, it’s a duck. Trump is a racist. How can anyone have any doubt???? There is plenty of current and past evidence.
If Instagram can place a ban on snake emjio’s flooding Taylor Swift’s account within hours then Twitter should have been able to stop the trolls from harassing others. It was just a matter of does the company want to.
It’s almost like they’re two different companies or something.
Truthfully, I wonder if Twitter has stepped in it by banning Milo.
Milo is not a nice guy and I disagree vehemently with much of what he says. However, I also read his review. He is vicious in it, but he does not attack Jones (although he does say that she was his least favorite character). He did not tell people to troll her. He did, once the trolling was underway, tweet that Jones was “acting like a victim” and that “everybody gets Twitter hate mail.” He also retweeted a screenshot of the fake Lesdogg account that mentioned him by name and used gay slurs (it’s not known whether he thought it was real or not) and a tweet mocking her grammar.
I fully support banning the individuals who were tweeting directly at Jones with nasty racist or sexist or gross things. That’s targeted harassment. But I do worry that Twitter now might have stepped in it by banning Milo, who, while absolutely an instigator but not one of the people doing the actual attacking. I’m not going to make a free speech argument because that doesn’t apply here. But it’s alright started with FreeMilo trending and people are threatening to take down the system and such and claiming hypocrisy because Twitter largely doesn’t ban other hateful groups, etc. I just hope the company isn’t seriously damaged by this.
The GamerGate people took him on as their savior. Now the Trump supporters love him, too. That’s a lot of unhinged basement dwellers that now are going to lose their minds. And yes, they’re vicious, hate women and will absolutely retaliate in the most psychotic ways possible. They definitely stepped in it, but I appreciate the effort. I just hope they introduce some real strategies to removing these types of people from their service.
Milo has personally been behind several harassment campaigns against women in tech. Twitter didn’t step in anything by banning him, and they should have done it years ago. And people will demand his “freedom” (because getting to use an online social network equates to personal liberty now) no matter what he does because they hate women without rhyme or reason.
He is not the person you want to defend here. He is not a measured, nuanced person on the other side of the aisle. He is a hateful bigot who has made many women’s lives very difficult.
The problem with that argument is that it’s content-dependent. Which is not really the point. I would defend allowing the Westboro Church to maintain a public presence, provided that they did not directly harass anyone (and let it be known: WBC does in fact have a very hateful Twitter and the company has done nothing to remove it).
And I know Milo is generally smart as hell – he knows exactly how far he can go. However, he has never directly harassed anybody. He might know very well that his followers will do so, but that is not the point. Does that mean that any journalist who writes highly critical pieces or reviews that might inspire harassment is then on the hook for it? That idea makes me uncomfortable. Plenty of online writers have written seriously invective pieces, some of which resulted in social media outrage against other parties. The idea of holding the writer responsible for the actions of others – well, that gives me pause. The fact that I find Milo dislikable does not change that argument, despite what you assert. The most dislikable among us are still entitled to fair treatment. I do not dispute Twitter’s right to ban him, as it is a private company. However, I do not see any wisdom in doing so, and I dislike the precedent it has set.
@Sam People are threatening to take down what system? What does that mean?
There have been rumblings that hackers affiliated with GG will try to screw with the Twitter system or hack major accounts or things of that nature. Milo is one of the most visible faces of GG.
Thank you for your thoughtful and measured comments (below also).
The stuff she was retweeting was beyond racist. It was horrifying to read that stuff.
Dan Aykroyd is giving the “Orange” candidate and the “I am going to control women through abortion” VP candidate way too much credit. Orangeman is the biggest troll there is.
He and his father were sued by the Department of Justice for systematically preventing blacks and other minorities from renting apartments. Read here: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/15/doj-trump-s-early-businesses-blocked-blacks.html
In 1927 Trump’s father was arrested for a riot while dressed as a KKK member. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/28/in-1927-donald-trumps-father-was-arrested-after-a-klan-riot-in-queens/
@Liz Thanks for including the links. I wish this was on CNN. I’m shocked but not shocked.
“Free speech does not mean that companies have to give every person with bigoted views a platform.”
True, but it also does not mean they must bend to the will of every celebrity whose feelings get hurt. Banning Yiannopoulos, who is a harmless cartoon character, is WAY over the top.
I would not call Milo harmless. He’s a major player in the conservative “alt-right” scene. He’s also one of the major forces behind GamerGate, etc. He’s not harmless by any stretch. However, I do question the wisdom of banning him, given that he was not one of the people directly attacking Jones, nor did he directly instruct anybody to do so. Jones did not “get her feelings hurt.” She was subjected to a wave of racist, sexist garbage as well as threats. Banning those who directly contacted her makes total sense. But I do tend to feel like banning Milo was a potentially bad move on Twitter’s part.
Milo wrote about the movie, and called Leslie a black man in a tweet. Then his “fans” started posting racist tweets and photoshopped pics of Leslie as animals and tagged him for approval.
That is true. However, I did read his review. While he was harsh towards Jones, he did not tell anybody to contact her. He did not tell anybody to harass her. He did not retweet any of the harassing images or tweets (he’s smart enough to know that’s stupid). He did re-tweet one of the fake images of Jones calling him a gay slur (whether he knew it was fake or not is up for debate) and he did mock Jones’ grammar when she tweeted directly at him. I’m just not sure banning him was prudent, given the circumstances. He’s basically now a cause celebre among the right and Twitter is probably going to experience some backlash from it. I also question why they responded so strongly in this case but not in other instances.
Disagree – it’s their company, their rules. If they feel a user is not following their rules, they have every right to ban them. Their policies are clearly spelled out, and they gave him several chances by suspending his account several times in the past.
I also wouldn’t call someone who incited racist harassment on someone “harmless”.
He isn’t harmless. As I stated above, he has led several harassment campaigns against women in tech that has threatened their offline jobs and lives.
“Hurt feelings” is a preposterous, insulting euphemism for what happens to these women, and shame on you for defending him.
It’s always harmless so long as it’s not happening to you.
Exactly.
+1,000,000
I’m not one for banning, either. But then I also have the hide of a rhinoceros, might well be a woman but am also white, and am not in the public eye.
But Milo’s had more than a few Twitter suspensions already and does, albeit in sneaky ways, incite pile-ons. And pile-ons cross the threshold from obnoxious behaviour into bullying.
I think Twitter has to create the environment it wants and it will stand or fall as a popular platform on its own decisions.
On a lighter note, I loved this satirical tweet on the misogynistic Twitter pile-ons – “Norman Rockwell’s classic painting, “Free Speech on Twitter””:
https://twitter.com/mrsambarlow/status/755472313668206592
I think Twitter’s big problem is that it is not consistent. Milo is certainly a troll (though he’s fairly smart at it) and I do not mourn his banning. However, some people have correctly pointed out that Twitter does not remove “hate speech” or “incitement” routinely. For example, yesterday, some conservatives on Twitter got screenshots of Nathaniel Friedman, who is a writer for GQ, tweeting that he wanted to “beat Pat Smith to death.” Pat Smith was a speaker at the RNC who is the mother of one of the people killed at Benghazi who is campaigning against Clinton. Granted, he did not tweet directly at her and he did apologize profusely for it the next day (and deleted the tweet). But some people today are asking why Milo got banned, despite never issuing any threats of violence, but Nathaniel Friedman is still around despite tweeting about his desire to beat a woman to death. He did mention that he was warned that if he did not delete the tweet, his account would be suspended, but I have to ask: Why just suspension after plainly stating your desire to murder a woman? Isn’t that worthy of an immediate ban? And then you have the fact that white supremacists are still around, WBC is still on Twitter, etc. Not to mention the rest of GG people.
I feel like Twitter has really backed into a corner on this. If they claim Milo was banned for harassment, that then raises the question of why that standard is not enforced equally. If it was for threats, why is somebody like Friedman still around? They don’t look very good no matter what they do here, which is why I think there will probably be some backlash on this one.
ETA: Here is the actual Friedman tweet and the backlash. It’s as bad as it sounds: http://freebeacon.com/culture/gq-writer-apologizes-violent-tweet-pat-smit/
I think it’s more of a question of it being too big to manage.
Like I say, I’m not really one for banning. I think Twitter should stand or fall by judgement of its users. If it’s abandoned by sensible people because it won’t control its trolls well enough to make a pleasant enough environment, that’s on Twitter.
But I think I’m in the minority. I think most users want them to set and maintain community standards, for which there will always be grey areas both vis a vis specific content and intent of any particular user. Also vis a vis each individual’s perception of the level of harm done to them. What seems simply rude and childish to me may seem like bullying or abuse to another.
I’d agree their efforts so far have been inconsistent. And given the environment, inconsistency is probably the worst of all worlds. Users need to know where they stand.
Sure racist taunts are SO harmless. Try dealing with it yourself and on the scale Leslie has in the last few DAYS and then come back to me
Yes. Remember when there Trump said Obama needed to show his birth certificate to prove be was born in Hawaii and all these people went crazy? Trump knew what he was doing, thats why i hate and will never vote for him
It is like the definition of harmless is lost. And to go with the others, he is not harmless.
“…but it also does not mean they must bend to the will of every celebrity whose feelings get hurt.”
Translation: “ME and MINE aren’t impacted by racism, so it’s an issue I get to trivialize as being just a matter of some celebrity’s hurt feelings. #Freespeech #WTFisEmpathy?”
I applaud Leslie for not ignoring it and standing up for herself, despite the pain it caused her, but I’m so disgusted that it took THIS for Twitter to finally do something about all the abuse. Or at least say they’re going to do something. We’ll see.
I have an account but rarely go on the site, but I did go on yesterday to send a positive message to Leslie. I hope she knows there is way more support than hate out there.
Shame shame shame on you Twitter – given how quick you were to react to the twitter eruption for everyone’s favourite lying princess of pop, you could have reacted a LOT sooner to the abuse Leslie has suffered. You owe her a massive apology!!!!
Wasn’t that Instagram?
it was both. Twitter trending topics were removed and comments on IG were removed as well. So both companies are full of it
What does mean? Like, right now people are saying the Free Milo trending topic has been removed and are freaking out, but I’m staring at it right now on Twitter. And I’ve refreshed several times. Honestly, I think this accusation has more to do with how people use Twitter and the trending topics location settings. It’s like when people insist that a tweet has been deleted, but it’s because they’re not looking at tweets with replies.
What made made me mad the most was the #freemilo trend on twitter. Explaining why this is okay, comparing their racism to BLM.
Go Leslie. I checked out the link in the Featured Links box about the snake emoji being banned form Swifty’s IG, and it’s super f*cked up that action can be taken on that but that there’s nothing to be done about egregious racists/sexists/etc on Twitter (or IG for that matter)
Unpopular opinion here…..
I don’t know. I have such mixed feelings on anything having to do with censorship. It’s such a slippery slope. (troll posting as Jones is different).
There will always be lowlife POSs. Censorship won’t stop them. Only education will. You have to break the cycle/legacy.
Let the bigots, assholes, et al show their true colors.
#LoveForLeslieJ
Twitter has the right to ban the accounts they want to ban. What doesn’t make sense is banning Yiannopoulos but David Duke tweeting racist remarks is ok? It is a slippery slope. If you ban 1 racist troll ban them all.
Yeah, but – nobody is stopping them from creating their own social media platform where they can say whatever they want.
If someone comes in my house and starts spouting BS, I’m giving them the boot. It’s the same for Twitter – it’s a case of their house, their rules, their user agreements etc.
I’m not arguing the my house/my rules right.
I’m arguing the concept.
Why not let them show their true colors on their own blogs, protests, rallies, t-shirts, and websites or on neo-Nazi sites like stormfront? The term censorship has been exploited to the point where it’s lost all meaning. People actually think that a private company like twitter choosing to prioritize people’s right to be able to go about their business without being subjected to this, over the right of racists, sexists, and other scumbags to feel like they can spread their message wherever they want is America “slipping down the Orwellian slope into a totalitarian thought-police censorship nation where everybody’s first amendment rights are violated and taken away,” just to use some of the overly-dramatic analogies the “anti-p.c.” crowd regularly uses. (And I’ve actually heard even more dramatic ones than that). Racists and sexists can always take their dehumanizing beliefs and expressions somewhere else.
How is a black woman being repeatedly harassed and verbally assaulted to the point of tears, resulting in her having to leave the platform in order to protect herself psychologically, NOT a form of censorship in and of itself?
Shame it had to get to this point for them to finally do something about it. Anyways, I hope Leslie is doing okay, and that she hears the support.
I’ve always though that people are pretty much inherently good, but I’ve gotta say that this year has really challenged that hope. It’s amazing how many truly disgusting people are out there.
Trump’s convinced a lot of people that being “politically correct” is bad when it’s really just thinking of ‘others’ as human beings and not just saying horrible things about them because your racist, misogynist, and homophobic heart believes them to be true.
You said better than I could. It’s scary.
Yes!
Reasons why I stay on Facebook and only use Twitter for business (I’m in entertainment marketing) only. Twitter is stocked full of trolls who just troll all day while eating mayonnaise sandwiches in their mom’s basements. These are usually the people who hate the government while living off government assistance. Ugh.
The uprising and boldness these racists have gotten since Trump hit politics is seriously heartbreaking. But on the other hand, they were always there and POC were dealing with them alone so I guess it’s best we all see how rabid & hateful they are. It makes my stomach churn. 🙁
I had to delete my Facebook account because death threats and insults were not against their guidelines….. Happy to have left Facebook because it was the 4th time that happened… Re: trolls, to be honest I had far less problems on Twitter than on Facebook.
I can’t even applaud this knowing how many women POC or minority groups were in Leslie’s position where they were getting hlatant obvious racial abuse, slurs, and threats and Twitter and other social media platforms did nothing to help.
It truly feels like at its core these supposadly new companies run by young intelligent supposadly liberal men don’t really give a crap about racists or curbing the discrimination and hate allowed to proliferate on their platforms.
Stopping bigotry shouldn’t need a celebrity shout out nor should it depend on skin tone. Azealia Banks rightfully got banned but white supremacists groups are allowed to tweet all kinds of hateful things. Taylor’s snake emoji is treated like a 911 but Leslie’s abuse needs a couple days and mild deflection to address.
It’s disheartening. It feels like the people who could stop it don’t give a damn about these groups who support their companies but need help.
Bout time!
What happened to Leslie was horrible but this reminds me of Kate Middleton jumping the court system line in France when her vacation photos went up. Same thing with Taylor and Instagram. Celebs deserve justice, but they also need to get in line. There are probably millions of people getting assault threats on Twitter right now, many of them without the many means of protection Leslie already has (private security, money to change living arrangements if she wants, etc.). Twitter should start with the highest risk cases and if they can’t discern that then just start with the first person in the complaint line.
Well…it needs to go both ways. The top conservative gay voice..milo..had his twitter account shut down by twitter yesterday right before he held a party at the rnc convention. He has said nothing inflammatory, is just a gay man who is supporting trump, not a crime. Liberals are all for free speech and gay rights, unless you disagree. In that case you must be ill informed and dumb..case in point..the treatment caitlyn jenner got when she dared to support republicans. This story on milo just broke and will be news..
Many gay men/women here in Europe are moving toward the far right nowadays after all these terrorist attacks, because they are afraid of the moslem population/immigrants in Europe who are unabashedly and openly anti-gay. Especially in France, Sweden and Germany.
But unlike the US, the far right in Europe have become far more accepting and tolerant toward gays and these specific LGBT-related issues and concerns, such as same sex marriage.
Most conservative parties actively advocate and even backed/voted for marriage equality. Curious.
…but he didn’t have it all shut down because he was a gay man supporting Trump. He was shut down because he’s one of the most consistent offenders of Twitters terms of service.
In his comments following the ban, he said “Some people are going to find this perfectly acceptable, anyone who believes in free speech or is a conservative certainly will not.”
Last I checked – he’s not being penalized by the government for speaking out against the government. So his version of free speech doesn’t even line up with the actual definition of the thing he’s whining about.
He got un-verified back in January after sending “You deserve to be harassed you social justice loser” at someone who asked him to get his followers to stop harassing them. That’s inciting. Even back then he was trying to turn it back to being vilified for his political affiliations – but in reality he’s a PoS who incites harassment, and constantly ‘trolls’ people. He loves the attention of having rabid followers, but takes no responsibility for his actions that rile them up. And when he gets cracked down on, he cries about it being political.
Come on…where is it acceptable to be a gay conservative man? Of course he feels attacked..because people do attack him! Just as caitlyn jenner was condemned for being republican..people on the left think they own the LGBT community and they dont like it! However, more and more gays are treading that way because of the republicans strong stance against the homophobic and ever dangerous isis.
As an LGBT women who’s pretty conservative in a lot of regards, I’m going to point out that most of the criticism of gay conservatives has nothing to do with their homosexuality and more to do with their OTHER privileges that allow them to support those movements. People like Caitlyn Jenner and Milo are protected from a lot of the more serious problems facing LGBT because of their wealth, race, gender (at least in Milo’s case), and celebrity. Being discriminated against in one area doesn’t erase privilege in other – and in this case, it’s particularly egregious because the latest platform has a serious anti-LGBT slant. A rich, gay man doesn’t have to care about marriage rights because his money affords him access to most of society’s most important services. A black, transgender woman living in poverty, on the other hand, has to worry about not being able to afford proper healthcare because her lesbian partner can’t legally extend her health insurance coverage.
Let’s not try to spin this this into a gay rights issue. Milo’s sexuality has nothing to do with the reason why he got banned- although I see that his sexual orientation is something that he and the cis, straight conservatives he answers to can conveniently use as props to get out of criticism for homophobia and accuse the opposing side of being the real homophobes- sort of like gender for Ann Coutler and the Palin women or gender and race for Stacey Dash. There have definitely been people who were not gay men who have gotten banned or suspended from Twitter for being sexist, racist, or harassing and abusing people online. Azalea Banks is one example, and a certain man-worshipping, self-hating Canadian female MRA of much lesser relevance (but she’s definitely trying to attention-whore herself into some more of that by being more flashy in her sexism and racism lately) is another. “He’s gay” or “she’s black” or “she’s a trans woman” isn’t a shield to throw up when society criticizes someone for being ignorant, racist, misogynistic, a general asshole, or just out of touch with reality. Not supporting those things from people of any sexual orientation or gender isn’t the same as not supporting the rights of gay or transgender people. As a matter of fact, it would be an example of inequality to make Milo above criticism for his sexism just because he happens to be gay. A person won’t get banned from twitter for their sexual orientation, and a republican or Trump-supporter won’t get banned just for existing on twitter.
Milo needed to go, he is the worst. I came across his Twitter a few times before and I was like wow, this man is beyond hateful. It was bad. He did in fact say nasty things about all the women in the movie as well. Calling them all nasty fat lesbians (some of his “kindest” words ugh) and so forth. So anyone saying he wasn’t directing hate towards any of them, including Leslie needs to reevaluate because he was. Now with that said. Twitter is filled with hate from a wide variety of people. Its not just the republican middle aged white male, which people love to use the example of. I spend a bit of time on Twitter everyday and I have seen it all. I just flipped on a young educated liberal who said he wanted to murder the mother of a military member who died in Banghazi all because she spoke at the RNC and against Hilary. I mean come on. What is wrong with people? What happened to respectfully disagreeing or just walking away? Just as I have seen republicans be nasty, I have seen just as many liberals be as nasty or worse. I have seen racists whites make horredous comments but I have also seen blacks do the same. It’s a cesspool I’m telling you and it’s horrifying. I mean if we are going to talk about this, actually do something about it and demand change we have to be honest and know that there is not one poster child for the ugly side of Twitter. I have always said Twitter gives every idiot a voice and a platform but the problem is not every idiot should have one.
The crap directed at Leslie was horrifying and so upsetting. She seemed shocked and hurt by it. I wanted to give her a hug. I hope she knows alot of people are enraged on her behalf and it looks like some changes are finally happening on Twitter.
I haven’t read the tweets, it sounds disgusting. It’s about time Twitter took a stand.
I didn’t think I could admire Leslie Jones more, but I do. I wish she would rejoin twitter because we need more amazing people like here, people who are not afraid to speak up. And also because that way we could show her how much we love and appreciate her and her work.
I love her. Boo ha on those evil people. She’s fabulous in and out!
Good! Trolls deserve to be banned. Good on Leslie Jones for exposing them! The things they said were despicable.