Actor Ben Affleck expressed surprise after Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein was exposed as a serial abuser of women, but few seemed to have time for his denunciation of the famous producer. It was remembered that Affleck not only groped Hilarie Burton on camera, but was well-aware of Weinstein's behavior.
After this, McGowan, who received a $100,000 settlement from Weinstein, was kicked off of Twitter. Here's The New York Times:
The message in the screenshot said that the lock was in effect because Ms. McGowan’s account had “violated the Twitter rules.”
It was not clear which tweets had resulted in the suspension. However, on Tuesday, after Mr. Affleck tweeted that the allegations against Mr. Weinstein “made him sick,” Ms. McGowan called him a liar, saying he had long been aware of what Mr. Weinstein had done.
Grim irony in the attempt to silence a Weinstein survivor speaking out. And another warning of the power social media companies wield, their blindness to its consequences, and their growing complicity in the harm caused.
UPDATE: Twitter spokesperson Kristin Binn says it locked her account because she had tweeted a phone number.
"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. The tweet was removed, and her account has been unlocked. … We will be clearer about these policies and decisions in the future"
At best, it took a day for them to explain, under enormous public pressure, a superficially reasonable policy whose application it had no reason to be secretive about. But as people often post far worse than phone numbers to Twitter without action being taken, I doubt this will cut the mustard.
