Leslie Jones has revealed that she’s back on Twitter, insisting that she couldn’t resist the allure of live-tweeting ‘Game Of Thrones’.
The ‘Ghostbusters’ actress revealed earlier this week that she was taking a break from social media, following a torrent of disgusting racist messages sent to her by trolls, which she began retweeting to highlight the problem of online abuse.
However, on Thursday (21 July) night, she joked: “Welp...a bitch thought she could stay away. But who else is gonna live tweet Game of Thrones!!”
Glad to have you back, Leslie.
In response to the much-publicised racist abuse that Leslie found herself on the receiving end of, a number of stars began posting the hashtag #LoveForLeslieJ, encouraging others to stand by the stand-up performer and comedy actress.
Having made her return to Twitter, Leslie also took a moment to address the hashtag directly, writing: “Thanks for the love and support I received! made me feel real special.”
Leslie announced on Tuesday that she was leaving Twitter “with tears and a very sad heart”, prompting a debate about whether Twitter was doing enough to protect its users from abuse.
Eventually, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey spoke out publicly, insisting that action was being taken.
He said: “We rely on people to report this type of behavior to us but we are continuing to invest heavily in improving our tools and enforcement systems to prevent this kind of abuse. We realise we still have a lot of work in front of us before Twitter is where it should be on how we handle these issues.”
Among this “action” was the indefinite suspension of Milo Yiannopoulos’ Twitter account, after he was instrumental in the trolling, including the circulation of fake tweets in Leslie’s name.
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