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Actress and comedian Leslie Jones — who’s on “Saturday Night Live” and starring in the new “Ghostbusters” movie — left Twitter in tears Monday night.
Twitter trolls spent the evening sending her racist tweets and images, and other users impersonated her on the service to write vile things. Her public pleas for them to stop even prompted Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to reach out and try to get in touch with her.
Twitter I understand you got free speech I get it. But there has to be some guidelines when you let spread like that. You can see on the
— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 19, 2016
@Lesdoggg Hi Leslie, following, please DM me when you have a moment
— Jack (@jack) July 19, 2016
We don’t know if they ever connected, but Jones signed off Twitter a few hours later with a heartbreaking message.
“I leave Twitter tonight with tears and a very sad heart,” she wrote. “All this cause I did a movie. You can hate the movie but the shit I got today...wrong.”
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
Jones’s departure is yet another sad reminder that Twitter hasn’t figured out a way to handle abuse on its platform. It’s bad for business to have users pushed out by other users. It’s bad for humanity, too. And you know it’s a major problem when high-profile, likable celebrities get chased off your service.
Jones is not the first celebrity user to be bullied off Twitter. Singer Adele and actress Lena Dunham both publicly quit Twitter in the past (although they are both back tweeting).
I use to wonder why some celebs don't have Twitter accts now I know. You can't be nice and communicate with fans cause people crazy.
— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 19, 2016
Update: This post has been updated.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.