Ghostbusters’ star Leslie Jones says she’s in ‘personal hell’ after trolls send barrage of racist, abusive tweets
Twitter responds by banning a number of user accounts for abuse and harassment
In the months leading up to the release of the Ghostbusters reboot, the film’s female stars have been the targets of criticism from online trolls who feel immense loyalty to the 1984 original.
Now that the movie has hit theatres — debuting with over US$46 million in box-office receipts last weekend — the hatred hasn’t stopped. In fact, it has perhaps only gotten worse.
On Monday, actress and Saturday Night Live member Leslie Jones — who stars in the new Ghostbusters alongside Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Kristen Wiig — began retweeting disturbing personal attacks being sent her way on Twitter. The majority of the comments had to do with her race, referring to her as an “ape” and a “savage.”
The tweets caught the attention of Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey, who sent Jones a message asking her to get in touch with him. Twitter later responded in a statement.
“This type of abusive behaviour is not permitted on Twitter, and we’ve taken action on many of the accounts reported to us by both Leslie and others,” said a spokesperson for Twitter.