Twitter on Tuesday night permanently banned Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos from using its service, reportedly for his role in the online harassment of actress and comedian Leslie Jones this week.
According to Recode, Milo can no longer use Twitter, which will suspend any new accounts he might try to create.
Twitter sent PCMag the following statement:
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.
The move comes after Jones, an SNL cast member who stars in the new Ghostbusters reboot, was hit with a barrage of hateful and racist comments on Twitter after Yiannopoulos published an insult-laden Ghostbusters review. Jones responded publicly to these tweets, at which point Yiannopoulos stepped in on Twitter to accuse Jones of playing the victim. He even posted fake homophobic tweets that looked as though they were written by Jones.
@Nero I'm hearing this guy is a columnist how sad. Is this how he gets his readers thru supporting hate? I'm acting like a victim? Nice job — Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 19, 2016
After Jones appealed to Twitter requesting "some guidelines" on how it handles abusive comments, CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted Jones, asking that she DM him.
@Lesdoggg Hi Leslie, following, please DM me when you have a moment — Jack (@jack) July 19, 2016
In a comment to Breitbart, the conservative news site where Yiannopoulos works, he called Twitter cowardly and said the service creates "a safe space for Muslim terrorists and Black Lives Matter extremists," but not conservatives.
This is not his first run-in with Twitter. In January, the service de-verified Yiannopoulos, reportedly after he told a fellow Twitter user that she "deserved to be harassed you social justice loser." His account has also been temporarily suspended several times for other distasteful behavior.
Jones has not yet commented on the ban.
The issue highlights a major struggle for Twitter: keeping its users safe from abuse. The company has acknowledged its shortcomings in that arena, but has not yet come up with a comprehensive approach to combat the problem. It's an issue that picked up steam in recent years, particularly after several women in the gaming industry received death threats via Twitter but were told nothing could be done.
Twitter last year also banned blogger Chuck Johnson, who asked for people to help him "take out" prominent Black Lives Matter activist, DeRay McKesson.