Women on Twitter rallied together in support of sexual abuse victims by going silent on the social media platform Friday.
The boycott was staged in response to Twitter’s temporary suspension of actress Rose McGowan, who has been using her account to speak out about the alleged sexual misconduct of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
The #WomenBoycottTwitter movement was first organized by San Francisco-based software engineer Kelly Ellis, who wrote that she’d be staying off the social platform on Friday, Oct. 13 in solidarity with the “Charmed” actress and victims of “hate and harassment Twitter fails to support.”
Celebrities including “Selma” director Ava DuVernay, model Chrissy Teigen, McGowan’s “Charmed” co-star Alyssa Milano and actor Mark Ruffalo tweeted late Thursday night that they would join the movement.
The boycott came in response to Twitter’s temporary suspension of McGowan’s account, which took place overnight Wednesday.
The actress has been using the platform to expose Weinstein and call on actors who she claims stayed silent during the producer’s alleged three decades of sexual harassment settlements. To rally support, she’s been using the hashtag #RoseArmy. Since Twitter suspended her Wednesday after she called on Ben Affleck to admit to previous knowledge of Weinstein’s actions, fans responded in outrage of the platform shutting down a woman who claims to be a victim of sexual abuse.
On a graphic supporting the boycott that has been circulating on Twitter, the event was described as “a day-long Twitter boycott in protest of women’s voices being silenced.”
The social platform later released a statement via its Twitter Safety account explaining that she had been blocked from sending tweets for a period of 12 hours because she tweeted out a private phone number, which violates policy. She regained access to her account Thursday afternoon after deleting the flagged tweets.
“We stand with the brave women and men who use Twitter to share their stories,” Twitter said in the statement.
Still, some weren’t satisfied with Twitter’s explanation.
“Too bad Twitter didn’t suspend @realDonaldTrump when he tweeted Lindsay Graham’s phone number,” “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” writer Audrey Wauchope wrote Thursday. “guess @rosemcgowan deserved it though.” McGowan retweeted her.
The #WomenBoycottTwitter participants went silent midnight Thursday and stayed off the site until midnight Friday.
