Users on Twitter were outraged by the activities of a troll that impersonated a known feminist, with the troll sending out promoted tweets that contained transphobic messages.
The troll account pretended to be that of Caitlin Roper, an Australian feminist campaigner and activist. The fake account posted abusive and graphic images, along with promoting tweets using the paid-for native advertising service of Twitter that said that transgender individuals should kill themselves.
When the promoted tweet began to appear in the Twitter streams of users, people expressed their anger at both the contents of the hateful tweets and the fact that Twitter had promoted it.
Actor Caspar Salmon was able to post a screenshot of the promoted tweet, questioning why the hateful message is appearing in his timeline.
Twitter user Kaiden was able to take a screenshot of the troll account's profile, showing a couple of hateful tweets.
@Caitlin_Roperr is being disrespectful, rude, and posting graphic images. pleaaaaseee report this trash. pic.twitter.com/2w4S4a1ZYB
— 『 Kaiden 』 (@KaidenThePunk) May 20, 2015
Twitter suspended the fake account within hours as users flooded the social network with reports regarding the account and its hateful messages. The promoted tweets were also removed from the streams of Twitter users.
The troll account's impersonation target, Roper, has previously been at the receiving end of similar abuse, with clone accounts pretending to be the feminist making derogatory sexual remarks for the public to see.
Various "men's rights groups" have targeted Roper, including a certain group named A Voice for Men. It has not been determined currently who was operating the deleted troll Twitter account.
Twitter has announced earlier in the year that it will be cracking down on abuse, with the social network implementing stricter rules on the permissible activities that its users can do and messages that users can send. Included in the stricter rules is the ban on indirect threats of violence.
Twitter also revealed that it would be launching a newly developed filter that would block threating messages automatically, preventing the message from ever reaching the users.
However, despite all these statements made by Twitter, the abusive tweet was still able to slip through the approval process of promoted tweets. How it was able to do so has not yet been explained by Twitter.
The Guardian asked Twitter for an explanation on how the troll account's abusive tweet was able to receive the social network's approval to be featured using the paid advertising service of Twitter.
A spokesperson for Twitter avoided the question, only saying that as soon as reports were received regarding the abusive tweet, the promoted tweet was taken down and the troll account was suspended.
