Update: Yep, he just got banned, permanently this time.
This may be the final straw in the ongoing battle between Milo and Jack Dorsey’s Twitter Trust and Safety Council. Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos may get banned from the social network for real this time — not for expressing controversial political opinions but for fanning the flames of a rather shameful campaign of racial abuse on Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones.
Milo has been at odds with Twitter for years, first losing his verification mark, then getting temporarily suspended in the wake of the Orlando shooting.
This most recent ordeal began when Jones started retweeting racist harassment she received on Twitter. Jones’ probably unwise act of feeding the trolls only incentivized more of them to send abuse just to gain the distinction of getting retweeted by a celebrity. The trolls then began doctoring images of Jones’ tweets to make it seems as if she were writing racist and homophobic statements.
Eventually Milo entered the fray, activating his horde of alt-right edgelords.
https://twitter.com/Nero/status/755158913297899521?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
While hate mail is to be expected, the level of abuse was getting extreme.
@Nero I'm hearing this guy is a columnist how sad. Is this how he gets his readers thru supporting hate? I'm acting like a victim? Nice job
— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 19, 2016
https://twitter.com/Nero/status/755177899423043584
The situation reached a boiling point when Jones retweeted someone calling Milo the Uncle Tom of gay people.
@Lesdoggg @Nero he's basically the Uncle Tom of Gay ppl. Huge Trump/alt-right fanboy who is gay.
— Backpacker (@backpackerFLASH) July 19, 2016
After a back and forth, Jones blocked Milo. His response was less than diplomatic.
https://twitter.com/Nero/status/755179836080025602
The abuse toward Jones got so bad that Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, responded personally to Jones on the social network. (Most people aren’t so lucky.) It seems many of the troll accounts targeting Jones were banned or suspended.
@Lesdoggg Hi Leslie, following, please DM me when you have a moment
— Jack (@jack) July 19, 2016
This entire saga will in no way help free speech survive on the social media platform. The gears are probably already turning at the Trust and Safety Council, trying to figure out a way to stop this highly publicized debacle from happening again. And no doubt the solutions will only restrict speech on the site further.
As for Milo, his days on Twitter may be numbered. Despite the fact that Milo is an editor at a major news publication, Dorsey may see it as in his best interest to finally ban the provocateur to take out the leader of his edgelord army.
Follow me on Twitter @William__Hicks.
