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Leslie Jones Attacked with Racist Messages and Vile Photos —Twitter Hesitates to Punish Trolls

Posted byBy Kiersten Willis | Published on: CommentsComments (0)
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“Ghostbusters” actress Leslie Jones was faced with vile, racist tweets after her movie’s Friday release and shared some of them on Twitter July 18. The star was brutally honest about the harassment she received and shared several screenshots of the messages. It led users to create the hashtag, #LoveForLeslieJ in support.

One tweet referred to her as an ape.

Another called her a “big lipped coon.”

Jones grew frustrated explained more about the barrage of filthy messages she received.

A fake Twitter account that was nearly identical to Jones’ – but without the blue verified check – was also created. The profile spewed derogatory and racist messages. She stressed it was not her page.

The “Saturday Night Live” star asked her followers to help her find the account.

In response, @MarissaRei1 created the #LoveforLeslieJ hashtag to encourage the star.

She followed by praising Jones for inspiring Black girls.

Many have hopped on board, including “Ghostbusters” director Paul Feig. He said any attacks on the movie star were “attacks against us all.”

Fellow comedian and host of daytime talk show The Real Loni Love encouraged other comics to “stand up for our girl now.”

Melissa Roth pointed to Jones’ rising Hollywood status as the reason hateful individuals are trying to bring her down.

https://twitter.com/melissahroth/status/755411612249497600

As #LoveforLeslieJ continues to gain traction, users have called on Twitter to combat the abusive tweets.

https://twitter.com/majken_aune/status/755159532729405440

A Twitter representative initially told BuzzFeed  “we don’t comment on individual accounts,” and linked to the site’s support page on their “content boundaries.”

Later on, Twitter told the media site the following.

“This type of abusive behavior is not permitted on Twitter, and we’ve taken action on many of the accounts reported to us by both Leslie and others,” the statement read. “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 realize we still have a lot of work in front of us before Twitter is where it should be on how we handle these issues.”

Jones sent several tweets Monday about how the racist insults affected her.

She ultimately signed off early Tuesday morning.

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