Breitbart Tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos spoke to TIME author Joel Stein and discussed his recent piece, “How Trolls Are Ruining The Internet.”
Milo asked him, “Why are all your victims liberals, in your piece? I have a theory about this but I want to hear what you think first.”
“All the victims you name in your piece, as I would say are progressives, social justice warriors, feminists – Conservative women get appalling abuse online so why are none of your examples anything but far left victims,” he continued.
Joel Stein explained, “I think they are more upset and more hurt.”
“You think lefties get trolled worse?” Milo replied.
“I think lefties get trolled more effectively,” Stein rebutted.
“Well they’re easier to troll because they’re dumb right? Because they’re stupid, but it isn’t remotely true that they get trolled more effectively or more viciously,” Milo countered. “I mean look at the sorts of things that are said to Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman, Ann Coulter, or the stuff that people still say about Margaret Thatcher, any woman that steps off the progressive ideological reservation. Conservative women get the worst abuse in the world, why not write about that?” asked Milo.
“Well I should have and I would like to,” replied Stein. “But I think there’s a different kind of trolling that’s perhaps lazier, it’s more like harassment and it’s done almost based on someones name or picture. So it’s very easy to troll me because my last name’s Jewish, right?”
“Well it’s easy to troll anyone,” said Milo, “but you made some partisan decisions in the victims that you chose for this piece. Everybody gets trolled on the internet, everyone in public life gets death threats, everyone in public life gets bomb threats, everyone in public life gets rape threats, but you chose a particular side of the political divide to characterise as victims. You decided you were going to choose women and feminists and all the rest of it and that was a decision, right?”
“There are people out there who are perfectly happy to tell you about how awful the internet has made their lives. For instance Michelle Malkin a very prominent conservative blogger in the United States who you will know of well, she wrote a book about it, but you didn’t interview her, you only interviewed the feminists, talk me through the reasoning,” Milo pressed.
“They have been louder in being more upset about this,” said Stein. “I wish I’d talked to Michelle Malkin about this, I should have.”
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