Chalk one up for the good guys. After pointing out and retweeting some of the vile and racist tweets sent her way, Ghostbusters star, Leslie Jones, got some sort of redemption on Tuesday when Twitter finally responded by permanently suspending some of the racists who took part in the attack.
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 has long come under criticism for not doing enough to police abusive behavior on the often-freewheeling messaging service. Other celebrities have taken issue with abuse on the site, including writer and actress Lena Dunham, who said in September she had hired someone to tweet on her behalf because it was no longer a “safe space” for her.
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.”
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 [hate] spread like that.”
