Twitter has responded to the backlash over their decision to suspend actress Rose McGowan’s account on the social media site.
Earlier this week, Rose revealed that she’d received a message from Twitter, explaining that she’d been temporarily banned from tweeting for violating the website’s terms of service.
This was met with a strong backlash, as for the past week, the actress had been using her Twitter account to call out various figures in the ongoing sexual abuse accusations which had been levelled against Harvey Weinstein.
Urging her supporters to act as “her voice”, she wrote on Instagram: “TWITTER HAS SUSPENDED ME. THERE ARE POWERFUL FORCES AT WORK.”
In response to the controversy, Twitter explained the situation, insisting that Rose’s account was only suspended because she tweeted out someone’s personal phone number.
They said: “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.
“Twitter is proud to empower and support the voices on our platform, especially those that speak truth to power.
“We stand with the brave women and men who use Twitter to share their stories, and will work hard every day to improve our processes to protect those voices.”
Since her return to Twitter, Rose has continued to address the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse accusations, having previously called out actor Ben Affleck over the matter, suggesting he had “lied” in his own statements about the movie mogul’s alleged misconduct.