- Opinion
- 15 Oct 17
The Father Ted co-creator and former Hot Press-er has called the service a "cesspool"...
Graham Linehan has taken to another social media site, Medium, to explain why he's deleted his Twitter account after sending over 148,000 messages and amassing nearly 700,000 followers.
Reason no. 1 is Twitter's failure to suspend Donald Trump after he threatened to wipe out North Korea, which is a clear breach of the platform's terms and conditions. Reason no. 2 is their blue tick-ing of Richard Spencer, the white nationalist who this week questioned whether or not women should vote in elections.
Linehan and his wife, Helen, were previously abused on Twitter after talking about their experience of fatal foetal abnormality and deciding, on medical grounds, to undergo a termination.
Here's what he has to say about closing down his account...
Goodbye, Toilet Town.
Right! Have been thinking about it for a while, but I’m going to deactivate my Twitter account. With Twitter such a cesspool, the least I can do is rob @jack and @biz of one blue tick. I can’t be complicit anymore.
Primary reason is Twitter’s refusal to suspend Donald Trump for his North Korea threat. This was so obviously a violation of their own ToS and they didn’t suspend his account or even try to delete it. Meanwhile, the toilet denizens that brought us every harassment campaign of the last few years have been gaming Twitter’s algorithms in order to ban people for telling verified Nazis to go fuck themselves.
And that’s the next reason. Not just Nazis but VERIFIED NAZIS. Richard Spencer who recently was seen seig heiling his little heart out and he’s given a blue tick like he’s Gwyneth Paltrow. Well, if people like him and Pizzagate lie-peddler Cernovich have a blue tick, I don’t want one. I don’t want to be a part of that club.
(Note To Twitter: Cernovich uses Periscope to smear people and then deletes the evidence. If I know that, how come you don’t? And if you do know that, how on earth is he still active on your site, let alone verified?)
Apparently, we verified accounts get a 12 month period to change our minds after we deactivate. This is Twitter’s very sneaky way of dealing with celebrity flounces. They should ask themselves why people want to leave in the first place.
Thanks to all the kind words from people over the last few days! Don’t worry, I’ll see you all around somewhere. Maybe on Mastodon.
P.S Also, replies are broken. WHY WON’T THEY FIX REPLIES