Milo Yiannopoulos Twitter ban: WikiLeaks threatens to start its own micro-blogging service

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: In a tough reaction to Twitter's permanent ban on the micro-blogging site's most offensive user and tech editor at conservative news site Breitbart Milo Yiannopoulos, WikiLeaks has warned to start its own Twitter because of "cyber feudalism".

In an online exchange of words between WikiLeaks and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, WikiLeaks posted: "We will start a rival service if this keeps up because @WikiLeaks and our supporters are threatened by a space of feudal justice."

After several complaints and repeated suspensions, the micro-blogging site banned Yiannopoulos after he led an online troll against Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones who vowed to leave Twitter over her treatment, prompting a major outburst on social media.

"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," Twitter said in a statement.

According to a report on The Verge, WikiLeaks' Twitter account declared the ban an example of "cyber feudalism," saying that Twitter had "banned conservative gay libertarian (Yiannopoulos) for speaking the 'wrong' way" to Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones.

Dorsey replied to WikiLeaks: "We don't ban people for expressing their thoughts. Targeted abuse and inciting abuse against people however, that's not allowed."

WikiLeaks, however, compared banning people on Twitter to Turkey's recent mass arrests and (apparently) Stalin's Great Purge in 1937.

Then, it threatened to create its own alternative micro-blogging service.

"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," Twitter posted earlier.

Yiannopoulos reacted to the ban, saying that the site has "confirmed itself as a safe space for Muslim terrorists and 'Black Lives Matter' extremists, but a no-go zone for conservatives."

The Breitbart tech editor has been disturbing Twitter users with his trolls for the past few years. Twitter earlier removed his verified Breitbart tech editor has been disturbing Twitter users with his trolls for the past few years. Twitter earlier removed his verified status, but allowed him to keep tweeting.

Last March, Chuck Johnson who once argued that homosexuality caused a horrendous Amtrak train crash, was permanently barred from Twitter.

(With IANS inputs)