Milo Yiannopoulos is a tech editor at conservative news site Breitbart with a penchant for Internet trolling, but he has sent his final tweet. After inciting a barrage of racist tweets aimed at “Saturday Night Live” comedian Leslie Jones, Yiannopoulos was permanently suspended from Twitter on Tuesday.
Using the handle @Nero, Yiannopoulos began insulting Jones, as Breitbart states, “Following Jones’ complaints about the messages she was receiving on Twitter and other social media platforms following the release of ‘Ghostbusters.'”
His insults included a video of Editorial Director of People and Entertainment Weekly Jess Cagle interviewing Jones and actress Kate McKinnon, who is white, also a co-star of the film. Yiannopoulos added the title, “Which ‘Ghostbusters’ Star Never Shaves Her Legs”
Jones tweeted atYiannopoulos:
His followers, (he had more than 300,000) began insulting her as well. At first Jones blocked the tweets, but then she beganretweeting to show the interactions. She was compared to Harambe, the gorilla killed at the Cincinnati Zoo, along with other derogatory comments:
Reported pic.twitter.com/EbctaTp5ze
Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 18, 2016
So sad pic.twitter.com/WQn097m9hn
Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 18, 2016
Exposing pic.twitter.com/jfSbGj3yCP
Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 18, 2016
I just don’t understand pic.twitter.com/N9xWoXPttu
Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 18, 2016
Twitter users then called on the company to remove him from the microblogging site, creatingthe hashtag #BanNero.Jones also sent a tweet questioning why Twitter doesn’t ban its abusive users, which garnered a response from its Chief Executive Jack Dorsey:
@Lesdoggg Hi Leslie, following, please DM me when you have a moment
Jack (@jack) July 19, 2016
Jones tweeted Tuesday night she planned to leave Twitter:
“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 sh*t I got today…wrong.”
Twitter decided to permanently delete Yiannopoulos’ account. However, the statement did not specifically say it was due to the derogatory tweets sent at Jones.
The company said “over the past 48 hours” it had taken actions, including permanent suspensions, against several users. It said the response came as an “an uptick in the number of accounts” violatinganti-abuse and anti-harassment policies.
“People should be able to express diverse opinions and beliefs on Twitter. But no one deserves to be subjected to targeted abuse online,” the statement reads.
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Yiannopoulos was previously temporarily banned several times for violating the company’s terms of service through offensive tweets, which often fanned political tensions.
In a Facebook post Monday morning, he said he has no remorse for attacking Jones. “No regrets. Why would I #BanNero hashtag has failed, #SuspendNeroParty hashtag has failed. Free Speech FOREVER.”
He later posted, “Twitter just declared war on free speech.”
Yiannopoulos is a conservative and a Trump supporter. At a “Citizens for Trump” rally on Monday outside of the Republican National Convention, he rallied attendees.
“It seems to me that Donald Trump is best placed to end the cancer of political correctness in this country,” Yiannopoulos said, according to Breitbart. “Isn’t it remarkable that in just 20 years, punk, the spirit of dissidence in the country has gone from being a far left activist to wearing a MAGA [Make America Great Again] hat.”
Yiannopoulos, who refers to himself as the “glittering leading light of the conservative gay movement,” participated in a “Gays for Trump” party in Cleveland on Monday as well. He posted a video of the event on his YouTube page, which has more than 200,000 subscribers.
Conservatives, traditionally, have been at odds with supporting the rights of the LGBT community.
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For example, Republican Vice Presidential Nominee IndianaGovernor Mike Pence was responsible for the most anti-LGBT bill in recent history and only retracted it after intense backlash from Indiana companies on Fair360, formerly DiversityInc’s Top 50 Companies for Diversity list, including Cummins(No. 19) and Eli Lily and Company(No. 26).
In September, when President Obama announced his nomination of Eric Fanning for Secretary of the Army, making him the first openly gay person to serve in the Army’s highest civilian role, conservative Mike Huckabee scoffed.
The former Republican presidential candidate said, “It’s clear President Obama is more interested in appeasing America’s homosexuals than honoring America’s heroes.”
