A Twitter spokesman provided a statement when asked about the suspension that does not refer specifically Yiannopoulos, but instead notes that it has policies against abuse or harassment and that “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”.
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“I leave Twitter tonight with tears and a very sad heart”, Jones tweeted.
The ban has nothing to do with speech, per se, Twitter said, but with the targeted abuse of a fellow member of Twitter.
Yiannopoulos responded to the now-permanent ban by calling it “cowardly” and predicting that this would harm Twitter.
Yiannopoulos also spoke to The New York Times on Tuesday and claimed, “This is the beginning of the end for Twitter”.
The suspension came a day after Jones, who is African American, said she was leaving Twitter after being bombarded by Internet trolls likening her to an ape and making other racist insults.
“But no one deserves to be subjects to targeted abuse online, and our rules prohibit inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others”. Yiannopoulos started working as a tech editor for Breitbart News, a politically conservative news outlet, in October 2015. The hashtag #FreeMilo was trending on Twitter on Wednesday.
He addressed his Twitter suspension at – of all places – a “Gays For Trump” rally at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Anyone who cares about free speech has been sent a clear message: “you’re not welcome on Twitter”. Twitter is holding me responsible for the actions of fans and trolls using the special pretzel logic of the left.
Several of the spotlighted accounts retweeted by Jones now appear suspended, though a few remain active; some of the offensive messages appear to have been deleted, though still traceable through the breadcrumbs of retweets and supporters’ comments. In many cases, users will create fake accounts to harass another users or organization.
Twitter, however, announced plans to further combat similarly hateful and bigoted rhetoric that’s long plagued its site.
“We know many people believe we have not done enough to curb this type of behavior on Twitter”, the company said in its statement, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Prior to barring the Greek-British journalist, Twitter released a statement about Jones’ situation.
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“We rely on people to report this type of behavior to us, but we are continuing to invest heavily in improving our tools and enforcement systems to prevent this kind of abuse”.
