Milo Yiannopoulos

Milo Yiannopoulos, tech editor for conservative website Breitbart.com, has been banned from Twitter after sending abusive tweets about “Ghostbusters” star Leslie Jones.

Yiannopoulos, who recently appeared as a speaker for a Gays for Trump party, criticized Jones’s role in the film as “spectacularly unappealing,” “flat-as-a-pancake black styling” and called her “barely literate.” When Jones tweeted she was receiving hurtful tweets he responded “If at first you don’t succeed (because your work is terrible), play the victim. EVERYONE GETS HATE MAIL FFS.”

Jones received racist tweets from other users calling her names such as “ape,” “savage” and “big lipped tycoon.” The horrific racist tweets, and a doctored tweet from the actress about Yiannopoulos spreading on Twitter, forced Jones to abandon the social media platform.

THIS WAS NOT ME!! OK TWITTER IM DONE!! IF YALL CAN LET THIS SHIT HAPPEN I DONT WANT TO BE HERE. I DID NOT POST THIS pic.twitter.com/CDGbuOHJN4

— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 19, 2016

I feel like I’m in a personal hell. I didn’t do anything to deserve this. It’s just too much. It shouldn’t be like this. So hurt right now.

— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 19, 2016

I leave Twitter tonight with tears and a very sad heart.All this cause I did a movie.You can hate the movie but the shit I got today…wrong

— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 19, 2016

Twitter took action and permanently banned Yiannopoulos’s account @nero for “targeted abuse online.” Yiannopoulos’s account had been suspended last year for claiming on his account that he was BuzzFeed’s “social justice editor,” which led to Twitter’s decision to give his account a permanent ban.

After his account was suspended, Yiannopoulos’s supporters created the hashtag #FreeMilo which became the number one trending topic on Tuesday night.

“With the cowardly suspension of my account, Twitter has confirmed itself as a safe space for Muslim terrorists and Black Lives Matter extremists, but a no-go zone for conservatives,” Yiannopoulos said in a statement to Breitbart. 

“Like all acts of the totalitarian regressive left, this will blow up in their faces, netting me more adoring fans. We’re winning the culture war, and Twitter just shot themselves in the foot,” Yiannopoulos continued. “This is the end for Twitter. Anyone who cares about free speech has been sent a clear message: you’re not welcome on Twitter.”

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Yiannopoulos says that it is “ridiculous” for his comments about Jones to qualify as harassment. He went on to say he is not responsible for the other Twitter users who tweeted racist messages to Jones.

Yiannopoulos told the Los Angeles Times he isn’t upset about the ban, but considers himself “a free speech martyr.”