Twitter received some substantial backlash over its decision to suspend Rose McGowan’s account, and now the company is revealing why it happened.
Twitter explained in their response that they didn’t suspend her account because of what she said, rather the numbers she included with her words.
Videos by ComicBook.com
“We have been in touch with Ms. McGowan’s team,” Twitter’s PR team said. “We want to explain that her account was temporarily locked because one of her Tweets included a private phone number, which violates our Terms of Service. The Tweet was removed and her account has been unlocked. We will be clearer about these policies and decisions in the future. Twitter is proud to empower and support the voices on our platform, especially those that speak truth to power. We stand with the brave women and men who use Twitter to share their stories, and will work hard every day to improve our processes to protect those voices.”
As you can imagine, that response isn’t going over so well with users or the internet in general. That has to do the persistent breaking of Twitter’s rules regarding hate speech and flagrant language, criticisms that many have levied against people like the President of the United States. People’s arguments seem to be that a phone number triggers something automatically, so why not all the rhetoric that the service has struggled with over the past few years.
We have been in touch with Ms. McGowan’s team. We want to explain that her account was temporarily locked because one of her Tweets included a private phone number, which violates our Terms of Service. 1/3
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) October 12, 2017
The Tweet was removed and her account has been unlocked. We will be clearer about these policies and decisions in the future. 2/3
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) October 12, 2017
Twitter is proud to empower and support the voices on our platform, especially those that speak truth to power. We stand with the brave women and men who use Twitter to share their stories, and will work hard every day to improve our processes to protect those voices. 3/3
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) October 12, 2017
This whole thing started when The New York Times published a detailed expose on Harvey Weinstein‘s history of sexual abuse. The report revealed a long series of incidents that involved Weinstein inviting actresses to his hotel room, where he would attempt to give them massages and have them watch him shower and perform oral sex.
McGowan was one of those women, and the report revealed that he came to a settlement agreement with her attorneys in 1997. Now that the news is out, McGowan is taking many of the people in Hollywood’s elite to task for knowing what was going on and not saying anything, and it looks like she will be able to do so again now that her Twitter account is back online.
