Infamous Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli joined a short list of extremists who were banned on social media site Twitter over the weekend when his creepy cyber-stalking of a notable female journalist drew the attention of site moderators.
Considering that harassment is a fairly widespread issue on Twitter that seems to be mostly ignored by the site’s leadership, it is surprising that Shkreli, a notorious user of the site, was kicked off.
Shkreli was banned on Sunday afternoon after repeatedly harassing Lauren Duca, a freelance journalist who rose to prominence earlier this month for her shocking take-downs of Trump in teen fashion magazine Teen Vogue.
Since her national appearances, Shrekli had been harassing Duca and had even photoshopped himself into a photo with Duca, his face covering the face of her husband. Shkreli also plastered his Twitter page with photos of Duca, appearing every part the stalker he was.
Likely, Shkreli was attempting to “troll,” Duca, rather than express his amorous feelings for her. Nevertheless, Duca and so many other noted women in politics today are far too familiar with this type of harassment, and it is a good first step that Twitter banned the stalker from Twitter.
Shkreli’s ban was preceded a similar ban of right-wing troll Milo Yiannopoulos, another notable right-winger who was booted from the site for similar and repeated harassment.
Shkreli rose to national prominence when he raised the price of an HIV drug by more than 5,000 percent at his drug company. Shkreli was later arrested for securities fraud and faces a trial later this year.
In the meantime, the eccentric character has spent his time online, YouTube live-streaming and creating controversy on Twitter. It appears he will have to find something else to occupy his time, though, and we can only hope that this is the first of many to come in 2017.
