On Tuesday night, in a surprising move, Twitter permanently banned conservative commentator Milo Yiannopoulos from using its service. Yiannopoulos, an editor for prominent conservative website Breitbart.com, has been known for making provocative statements on Twitter and elsewhere.
Twitter said the suspension was part of a wider move to block a number of user accounts for abuse and harassment after Ghostbusters actor Leslie Jones on Monday drew renewed attention to the issue and announced she would quit the social media site.
Jones retweeted and shared several abusive tweets she received Monday before telling her 250,000 followers: “I leave Twitter tonight with tears and a very sad heart. All this cause I did a movie. You can hate the movie but the shit I got today… wrong.” Jones shared some of the racist tweets targeted toward her, many of which compared her to an ape. User YellowArmedImposter wrote, “Your Ghostbusters isn’t the first to have an ape in it,” which Jones shared with the comment: “I just don’t understand.” Jones, who is also a regular cast member on Saturday Night Live, publicly pondered over several tweets what would prompt people to “spew hate.”
“I used to wonder why some celebs don’t have Twitter accts now I know,” she wrote in one tweet. In a separate post, she added: “Twitter I understand you got free speech I get it. But there has to be some guidelines when you let spread like that.”
Among those banned Tuesday was Breitbart tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos, who has been a controversial figure on the site and helped lead the abuse against Jones. Yiannopoulos did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Twitter said in a statement Tuesday that it had seen an “uptick” in the number of accounts violating its abuse and harassment policies over the past 48 hours, noting it had enforced its policies either by issuing warnings or permanently suspending users. “We know many people believe we have not done enough to curb this type of behavior on Twitter. We agree,” Twitter said in the statement. “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.”
“People should be able to express diverse opinions and beliefs on Twitter,” said a Twitter official in a statement. “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.”
“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,” the official said. “We’ll provide more details on those changes in the coming weeks.”
According to the Hill, a Twitter spokesperson did not respond to a question about what policy violation specifically led to Yiannopoulos’s suspension.
While Yiannopoulos did not immediately respond to a Hill request for comment, told Breitbart that “this is the end for Twitter.” “Anyone who cares about free speech has been sent a clear message: you’re not welcome on Twitter,” he said.
In a comment, Milo said “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.”
He is scheduled to appear at an event linked to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland on Tuesday night.
Meh. Probably my age talking here, but who gives a shit about Twitter anyway?
That and Facebook can kiss my ass.
Me too, dawg. I almost give a tin shit what happens with twitter and facebook.
The Hangman
Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame on the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime,
That Hangman judged with the yellow twist
Of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead;
Till one cried: “Hangman, who is he
For whom you raise the gallows-tree?”
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
“He who serves me best,” said he,
“Shall earn the rope on the gallows-tree.”
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another’s grief
At the Hangman’s hand was our relief.
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow’s sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his hangman’s cloak.
The next day’s sun looked mildly down,
On roof and street in our quiet town
And, stark and black in the morning air,
The gallows-tree on the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike,
And his air so knowing and businesslike.
And we cried: “Hangman, have you not done,
Yesterday, with the alien one?”
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed:
“Oh, not for him was the gallows raised.”
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
“Did you think I’d gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That’s a thing I do
To stretch the rope when the rope is new.”
Then one cried, “Murderer!” One cried, “Shame!”
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man’s place. “Do you hold,” said he,
“With him that was meant for the gallows-tree?”
And he laid his hand on that one’s arm,
And we shrank back in quick alarm,
And we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of fear of his hangman’s cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise,
The Hangman’s scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took — we had all heard tell —
Was a usurer and infidel,
And: “What,” said the Hangman, “have you to do,
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?”
And we cried out: “Is this one he,
Who has served you well and faithfully?”
The Hangman smiled: “It’s a clever scheme
To try the strength of the gallows-beam.”
The fourth man’s dark, accusing song
Had scratched out comfort hard and long;
And “What concern,” he gave us back,
“Have you for the doomed – the doomed and black?”
The fifth.The sixth. And we cried again:
“Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?”
“It’s a trick,” he said, “that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow.”
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score;
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide,
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came
And called in the empty streets my name –
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall
And thought: “There is no one left at all,
For hanging, and so he calls to me
to help pull down the gallows-tree.”
And I went out with right good hope
to the Hangman’s tree and the Hangman’s rope.
He smiled at me as I came down,
To the courthouse square through the silent town,
and supple and stretched in his busy hand,
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap
And it sprang down with a ready snap—
And then with a smile of awful command,
He laid his hand upon my hand.
“You tricked me, Hangman!” I shouted then.
“That your scaffold was built for other men.
And I no henchman of yours,” I cried,
“You lied to me, Hangman, foully lied!”
Then a twinkle grew in his buckshot eye:
“Lied to you? Tricked you?” he said,
“Not I. For I answered straight and I told you true:
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
“For who has served me more faithfully
Than you with your coward’s hope?” said he,
“And where are the others that might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?”
“Dead,” I whispered; and amiably
“Murdered,” the Hangman corrected me;
“First the alien, then the Jew…
I did no more than you let me do.”
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky,
None had stood so alone as I –
And the Hangman strapped me, and no voice there
Cried “Stay” for me in the empty square.
—Maurice Ogden
Admin.,
that was a scary poem…we had better be wary of it.
Twitter is for twats.
And twits.
Truly.
It seems Twitter has proved Milo’s point. In PC culture “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” PC culture is consuming its own.
Milo should be one of Twitter’s protected classes because he is a self-admitted member of the LGBTQ community. What got him banned is that he apparently offended a member of another of Twitter’s protected classes, a member of the black community who is also female and starring in a PC-approved feminist movie.
If Milo were black, would Twitter have still banned him or would that create a black hole vortex where black gay man versus black female feminist causes Twitter’s head to explode (think Louie Del Grande in Scanners, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI3NoBeNwfk)?
I can listen to NPR all day long. The left cant listen to conservative or anti government radio.
Why not?
I like to know or at least try to figure out the other side.
I think Administrator is right. If Clinton wins its bye bye free speech.
Twitter is a business, not a public service. They can and should ban anyone they want. Libertarians should wholly support that.
We the people need to ban these foreign fucksticks from OUR politics otherwise we might might end up with some nigger from Kenya as Pres……..nevermind……too late.
Twitter holds itself out as a de facto commons, so does Facebook. Both routinely censor content they internally determine to be politically unpalatable, and in both cases the censored content is universally (or very nearly so) on the right-wing side of the political spectrum.
Clearly what is needed is to regulate the Twitter and Facebook sites as public utilities. Think of the children?
“Clearly what is needed is to regulate the Twitter and Facebook sites as public utilities. Think of the children?”
Fuck me dead! Anytime I hear anyone say “the govt should do _____” or “regulation is what we need” I look at as a sign of a person that has completely abdicated their rights and responsibilities. How’s about you regulate yourself and not use their services if you disagree with how it’s being run? Do it FOR your children.
Milo Yiannopoulos Responds To Twitter Ban
by Tyler Durden
Jul 20, 2016 3:07 PM
As noted earlier, Twitter caused a stir overnight among the political commentariat when late yesterday it reported that it had permanently banned conservative commentator Milo Yiannopoulos from using its service.
Twitter said in a statement Tuesday that it had seen an “uptick” in the number of accounts violating its abuse and harassment policies over the past 48 hours, noting it had enforced its policies either by issuing warnings or permanently suspending users. “We know many people believe we have not done enough to curb this type of behavior on Twitter. We agree,” Twitter said in the statement. “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.”
Twitter continued: “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. 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,” the official said. “We’ll provide more details on those changes in the coming weeks.”
Moments ago, in his first official interview since the ban, Milo spoke to CNBC’s Michelle Caruso-Cabrera to give his take on what happened.
“The company is entitled to do what it likes. The problem is it’s lying to users. Jack Dorsey says that twitter is the place you go if you want to express yourself. That’s a lie. There is a systematic campaign against conservative and liberatrian points of view on Twitter.
Twitter is perfectly happy to host ISIS, to host death threats against Donald Trump supporters and they do nothing in any of these cases. But if you make a joke about a feminist, or if you dislike the new Ghostbusters movie, or if you have the audacity to dislike the work in Hollywood of someone who happens to be black, or happens to be a woman and you get suspended, that’s absurd.”
Whether there is any profound significance to this latest fiasco, remains to be determined. The truth is that those who want to use twitter, are free to use it, and likewise are free to decide who to follow and block – one can argue that it is strange that a platform that prides itself in its “free speech” should decide when and in what cases it should intervene and censor or block users. Alternatively, there are those who may chose simply to avoid twitter altogether, something which TWTR’s shareholders are quite concerned about, and should more incidents such as this one occur, it is probably safe to say that twitter will further alienate a substantial portion of the US population; hardly an attaractive IRR from a shareholder’s perspective.