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The Internet’s worst people have a new woman to hate: Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones

Leslie Jones, badass
Leslie Jones, badass

[UPDATE: Milo has been banned for good from Twitter. My thoughts here.]

More than a year and a half of manbaby whining wasn’t enough to derail the opening weekend of the Ghostbusters reboot: the film took in a greater-than-expected $46 million in the US, and Sony is already talking about a sequel.

And so the Lady-Ghostbuster-haters have returned to their roots. And by that I mean harassing women. The woman they’ve chosen to target this time? Leslie Jones, who, in the tiny minds of her harassers, has two strikes against her: 1) she’s one of the stars of the Ghostbusters reboot and 2) she’s black.

The harassment campaign seems to have started in earnest yesterday morning, not long after “journalist” and Internet Nazi apologist Milo Yiannopoulos posted his, er, review of Ghostbusters on Breitbart, singling out Jones as “the worst of the lot. The actress is spectacularly unappealing, even relative to the rest of the odious cast.”

After this, the deluge. Racist Twitter goons swarmed Jones, attacking her as a “coon” and a “savage,” and comparing her to Harambe the ape; one critic, Jones reported, sent her “a pic with semen on my face. I’m tryin to figure out what human means.”

Taken aback at the sheer nastiness of the attacks, Jones started posting screenshots of some of the most blatantly racist abuse.

Did Milo and his Twitter goons organize this campaign of abuse? I don’t know. But he definitely poured fuel on the fire.

After Jones reported him on Twitter for abuse, Milo (or someone working for Breitbart Tech, which Milo ostensibly runs) assigned a Breitbart Tech “reporter” to write a “news” article about this momentous event. No, really.

When asked for official comment on his blocking by Jones this is what Milo said: “She must have read my review! Honestly, this is why I say feminism is cancer. She used to be funny but being involved in a social justice dumpster fire like Ghostbusters has reduced her to the status of just another frothing loon on Twitter.”

Further ridiculing Jones, Milo said, “Imagine it: the star of a Hollywood blockbuster sitting at home reporting random people on social media for saying her movie sucked. Sad!”

Imagine the editor of Breitbart Tech assigning a reporter to interview him about being blocked and reported on Twitter. Beyond sad.

Milo then Tweeted screenshots of some obviously fake Tweets purportedly from Jones that some of her haters had conjured up and posted on Twitter.

Truly a class act, all the way.

After many hours of this sort of abuse, Jones responded to the hate with a series of heartfelt tweets.

The haters gloated over their “victory.”

If you’re on Twitter, show your support for Jones in the #LoveForLeslieJ hashtag.

And consider sending a strong but politely worded note to Twitter CEO  Jack Dorsey (@jack) to let him know that Twitter’s continued inability or unwillingness to rein in its nastiest abusers and trolls is not acceptable.

Twitter can be a marvellous platform to share thoughts and jokes and links and ridiculous gifs. It can also be the enabler of vicious campaigns of harassment and abuse. Twitter provided the platform that made the racist harassment campaign against Jones possible.

Get it together, Twitter, or Leslie Jones won’t be the only one signing off.

H/T — Thanks to everyone who brought this to my attention. Thanks to Colby Klaus, whose post on the Amala Network offered a detailed timeline of the abuse and highlighted Milo’s role in all this, which I drew on in writing this post. And thanks to @TakedownMRAs for staying on top of this and pointing out Lo-ping’s gloating Tweet.

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Ooglyboggles
Ooglyboggles
8 years ago

There is justice in this world. Celebrations all around.
comment image
http://pa1.narvii.com/5827/f927ca70e5ad17f4c330eba0698705757a16d6e8_hq.gif

I still think Twitter should issue a formal apology for not addressing Leslie Jones’ woes and being tolerant of intolerance.

Here’s their official quote.

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. 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.

We know many people believe we have not done enough to curb this type of behavior on Twitter. We agree. 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. 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. We’ll provide more details on those changes in the coming weeks.

I’ll believe it when I see it.

weirwoodtreehugger: communist bonobo
weirwoodtreehugger: communist bonobo
8 years ago

I can’t wait for the male tears to commence. Remember the meltdown his fans had just for the loss of the blue checkmark?

weirwoodtreehugger: communist bonobo
weirwoodtreehugger: communist bonobo
8 years ago

I went to the Kotaku in action subreddit to see what gamergaters are saying.

So far it seems to be denial mixed in with “they need to ban leftist harassers too!”

There’s already a conspiracy courtesy of someone named “Papa Putin” barf at that name!

According to Buzzfeed, don’t give them the benefit of a click. They spat out their article quick, so his impending ban may have been known by them beforehand.

The media and twitter are in cahoots to supress Milo’s freeze peach!

There are even some people saying they agree that Milo went too far and deserved the ban which is a pleasant surprise!

Axecalibur: Middle Name Danger
Axecalibur: Middle Name Danger
8 years ago

Re: Milo ban
http://38.media.tumblr.com/d3a72ab8c11fda560ac109a1e90b4c47/tumblr_nkq97kb35B1qc5g5do1_540.gif
Is that the sun peering thru the rain? Do we dare venture out into the bright, new world? *Ooh, child, things are gonna get easier*

@JSun

they’ll be taking a more aggressive approach from now on

*Guffaw*

@WWTH

There are even some people saying they agree that Milo went too far and deserved the ban

The babiest of baby steps. I’ll take it!

Bina
Bina
8 years ago

It’s Milo’s narcissism which always gets me, is he being ironic?

In the O. Henry sense of the word, perhaps.

PeeVee the Sarcastic
PeeVee the Sarcastic
8 years ago

Milo has been banned.

Good!!

Asshole.

Pony's Labia
Pony's Labia
8 years ago

Milo banned!! He’ll be even less relevant than he is now

Fruitloopsie
Fruitloopsie
8 years ago

That’s absolutely disgusting. All my love goes out to Mrs. Jones, I’m not much of a fan of Ghostbusters but seeing all these white/male tears makes me want to go see it.

I really wish all these social media sites like Twitter and Facebook would get off their butts and do something instead of allowing this and making empty promises.

To everyone who is reading this I think I can speak on behalf of all black women and girls that we all need to stand up alongside them and to tell them we are all on their side and willing to listen. Black women and girls you are amazing people. Some of the most loving and inspirational women and girls in my life have been black and I’m sorry I can’t tell everyone of them in the world but thank you so much for all you’ve done and I’m sorry that we haven’t been standing/speaking up, I know a lot of you are tired but don’t ever give up.

Ooglyboggles
Ooglyboggles
8 years ago

@Fruitloopsie
It’s a good thing Milo is permabanned from twitter and multiple of his personal attack dogs for harassing a women on twitter.

Plus Twitter is claiming they’ll clean up their act, how much cleaning that pertains is yet to be seen. Again I sincerely hope that Twitter will at least offer some form of apology for Leslie Jones for not properly moderating its community.

Fruitloopsie
Fruitloopsie
8 years ago

Ooglyboggles
Yeah I read, I just wish they took their policies more seriously from the beginning but they seem to have no problem warning, banning and erasing comments whoever says something mean about white people/men.

kupo
kupo
8 years ago

Oh man, the #freemilo hashtag is comedy gold. “You banned Milo but you won’t ban this guy who called me a racist!!!! Freeze peach or no peach!”

Ooglyboggles
Ooglyboggles
8 years ago

@Fruitloopsie
That’s why I have low expectations with this declaration from Twitter. I’d rather have Twitter that doesn’t cater to those who consider minorities and others as “undesirables” and must be purged. Even with my posts showing I’m happy the decision was swiftly made, I still don’t believe that what happened to her and countless other women, is something that should be tolerated or considered normal. What happened to Milo shouldn’t be just him and move on, Twitter has a systemic problem of knuckle dragging; I would like for Twitter to actually have some moderation and control over themselves.

At the end of the day, in a better world, you and I shouldn’t even have to have this conversation. But since we live here, might as well do our best to make the internet a better place.

@kupo
Oh yes the schaudenfreude.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/7/m/v/2/z/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.620×349.17mult.png/1445479149959.jpg

ColeYote
ColeYote
8 years ago

What a shock, Milo’s review reads like he just read someone else’s review and watched the trailer, then decided to shit out a review anyway.

PeeVee the Sarcastic
PeeVee the Sarcastic
8 years ago

Ah, under moderation. Must be JB’s lovely slur in the URL.

ColeYote
ColeYote
8 years ago

It’s Milo’s narcissism which always gets me, is he being ironic?

It’s probably “ironic” the same way /pol/ Nazis are “ironic.”

EJ (The Other One)
EJ (The Other One)
8 years ago

I’m glad that Yiannopoulos has finally had to face some consequences for his misbehaviour. I hope it causes him to rethink. I doubt it will.

I’m still pretty disappointed by Twitter’s response. This isn’t a new issue and as Ooglyboggles and Fruitloopsie have said, they’ve dragged their feet (and knuckles) on it for some time. I don’t think we can assume good faith on their part.

KindaSortaHarmless
KindaSortaHarmless
8 years ago

Milo banned? Well, baby steps, Twitter. Baby steps.

Catalpa
Catalpa
8 years ago

Considering how many times JB has been banned and hopped right back onto twitter, how long do you suppose it will take Milo to make a new account and go back to harassment business as usual? A couple hours? A day?

Perhaps since Twitter is attempting to look like they give a solitary fuck about harassment, they might ban Milo again if he shows up within the next day or so. So maybe he’ll lie low for like a week, when all this will have blown over and twitter will have gone back to its usual “harassment? what harassment?” method of operation. /cynicism

Ghost Robot
Ghost Robot
8 years ago

Milo’s already making his ban all about Twitter’s non-existent “war on conservatives” (just like Matt Forney did). Yet one always hears about conservatives stressing the importance of “personal responsibility.”

I honestly hope there’s some kind of legal recourse for Jones in all of this. Surely it’s time for a legal test case.

Pietro_McM
Pietro_McM
8 years ago

No longer free to have fun playing twister on Twitter, the fragrant & coiffed Milo can now spend more time playing twister with his shaved & tattooed kameraden on alt-right.

Sure that’ll end well.

Bryce
Bryce
8 years ago

It’s a shame she felt the need to engage them directly rather than just report them, it doesn’t do much except demonstrate harassment having its desired effect. Bout time twitter properly moderated their own platform.

Paradoxical Intention - Mobile
Paradoxical Intention - Mobile
8 years ago

The fact that he’s been able to get away with it until he attacked and sicced his hatemongers on a famous black woman is already horrific.

That being said, I’m glad Twitter’s finally getting on this shit, even if it’s most likely only because it was a currently in the limelight celebrity being openly attacked using their platform.

However, I’m sure they won’t mind if I don’t hold my breath on their promises of cleaning up this mess.

Paradoxical Intention - Mobile
Paradoxical Intention - Mobile
8 years ago

The fact that he’s been able to get away with it until he attacked and sicced his hatemongers on a famous black woman is already horrific.

That being said, I’m glad Twitter’s finally getting on this shit, even if it’s most likely only because it was a currently in the limelight celebrity being openly attacked using their platform.

However, I’m sure they won’t mind if I don’t hold my breath on their promises of cleaning up this mess.

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