Leslie Jones Leaves Twitter in Tears After Attacks, Twitter CEO Responds
Oh, Twitter. You bring out the worst and best (but more often worst) in so many people. "Ghostbusters" star Leslie Jones is not the first person to be attacked on Twitter, but she retweeted some of her disgusting racist and sexist messages -- including ones from a fake account with her name -- calling out for help to stop the cruel people who have come after her just because ... why? They don't like her new movie? They don't personally find her attractive? Just because they can get away with being so awful and that's reason enough?
Ok I have been called Apes, sent pics of their asses,even got a pic with semen on my face. I'm tryin to figure out what human means. I'm out
— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 18, 2016
You know I'm gonna stop blocking so y'all can go through my feed yourself and see the bs. You won't believe the evil. It's fucking scary
— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 18, 2016
I feel like I'm in a personal hell. I didn't do anything to deserve this. It's just too much. It shouldn't be like this. So hurt right now.
— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 19, 2016
I just don't understand pic.twitter.com/N9xWoXPttu
— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 18, 2016
THIS WAS NOT ME!! OK TWITTER IM DONE!! IF YALL CAN LET THIS SHIT HAPPEN I DONT WANT TO BE HERE. I DID NOT POST THIS pic.twitter.com/CDGbuOHJN4
— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 19, 2016
Exposing pic.twitter.com/jfSbGj3yCP
— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 18, 2016
So sad pic.twitter.com/WQn097m9hn
— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 18, 2016
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 shit I got today...wrong
— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 19, 2016
There's a lot more, but ... ugh. The good news after all of Leslie's personal attacks is that she got an outpouring of support from fans and colleagues, including her own hashtag #LoveForLeslieJ.
Leslie Jones is one of the greatest people I know. Any personal attacks against her are attacks against us all. #LoveForLeslieJ@Lesdoggg
— Paul Feig (@paulfeig) July 18, 2016
Wow. Yet another example: HURT PEOPLE HURT PEOPLE. Intolerable trolling. So much ignorance & hate. I stand with #LeslieJones#LoveforLeslieJ
— kerry washington (@kerrywashington) July 20, 2016
Also, Leslie's tweets reached Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who reached out to her, and whose company release a statement on Tuesday:
@Lesdoggg Hi Leslie, following, please DM me when you have a moment
— Jack (@jack) July 19, 2016
Here's Twitter's statement, via a spokesperson to the Associated Press:
"This type of abusive behavior is not permitted on Twitter, and we've taken action on many of the accounts reported to us by both Leslie and others. 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. We realize we still have a lot of work in front of us before Twitter is where it should be on how we handle these issues."
Milo Yiannopoulos, described by the Los Angeles Times as a "conservative lightning rod," was banned from Twitter on Tuesday after some of his negative tweets to Jones, and he got his own #FreeMilo hashtag from free speech advocates. (It's pretty sad that so much of "free speech" is "hate speech." "Kind speech" and "no speech" are also free, you know.) Hopefully Leslie returns to Twitter, instead of letting the trolls win, since there are more people who are on her side than against her.
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