Yesterday, Breitbart Tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos was permanently suspended from Twitter for apparently harassing Leslie Jones, one of the leading actresses in the new Ghostbusters reboot.
However, whilst the narrative currently being spun across many mainstream media outlets is that Jones is an innocent victim of racist online trolls, more evidence has arisen that suggests that Jones is in fact an aggressor who deliberately orders her followers to attack her “critics” on Twitter.
Ironically, directing a targeted harassment campaign and ordering followers to attack another user is a violation of Twitter’s terms of service, and exactly what Yiannopoulos was accused of by Jones. This was what Twitter eventually used as an excuse to ban Milo, even though there was no evidence whatsoever that Yiannopoulos ordered his followers to attack the actress.
No major news organisation has yet picked up on Jones’ racist tweets about white people, or the fact that she was hitting back at “trolls” before Yiannopoulos ever got involved.
Appearing on Late Night with Seth Meyers back in May, Meyers noted that Jones made the decision to “engage with critics” on the social media platform.” Jones responded by triumphantly declaring that she is “not no robot [sic] that sits behind a Twitter thing and tweets out, I’m a real person. I’ve got a Twitter account and yes if you call me a name I’m going to call you a name back.”
In a not so subtle boast, Jones continued, saying that she didn’t “care how famous I am or how popular I am – if you call me a gorilla I’m going to call your mama one too.” More importantly, the Ghostbusters actress pointed out that she would “blow [anyone] up” who tweeted at her that she didn’t agree with, retweeting it “so all of my followers can see it and get on your punk…” Jones then trailed off before finishing her sentence.
You can watch the full interview with Meyers here.
Jack Hadfield is a student at the University of Warwick and a regular contributor to Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @ToryBastard_ or email him jack@yiannopoulos.net.