After seeing the atrocious picture @Austindelafrog made of Meghan McCain, 33, depicting her being shot at her father’s memorial, it’s easy to say that “Twitter was a bad idea.” The deplorable troll took a picture of Meghan sobbing over John McCain’s casket at his Aug. 30 memorial in Phoenix and photoshopped in pair of hands aiming a semiautomatic handgun at her. “America, this ones(sic) for you,” @Austindelafrog said. The threat didn’t go unnoticed by Meghan’s family, and her husband, Ben Domenech, 36, demanded Twitter do something.
“Hey @Jack [Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Twitter], this has been up for half a day. It has been reported 100+times. No response. Tell me why this is cool by you,” Ben asked. “You should prepare an answer for the people pissed off at you. A hint: the entire committee.” Ben would say that his tweet finally got a reaction – but not from Twitter. “[T]he reaction was from the guy, not Twitter. Looks like he set his account to private.” The social media company would act on the threat, almost 24 hours later.
“Twitter finally suspended this account this morning,” he wrote on Aug. 31. “No one should have to raise a ruckus or highlight this sort of thing publicly to get their attention.” The last thing a grieving Meghan needs is to worry about her public emotional displays becoming memes for disgusting trolls. Right now, she needs to mourn her father in peace and thankfully, her husband is standing up for her while taking Twitter to task. Though, judging by the side-eye she gave Vice President Mike Pence, she’s pretty capable of handling herself.
I am going to delete the initial tweet now so no one has to see it. Still want an explanation for why something so obviously in violation took so much attention for Twitter to react.
— Ben Domenech (@bdomenech) August 31, 2018
Sadly, this kind of gross meme seems to be the status quo for the social media platform, though it has supposedly cracked down on hate speech. As for Ben’s comment about being “prepared” for “the entire committee,” he was talking about what’s happening next week. Jack Dorsey will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Sept. 5 about Russian interference in America’s elections, per Bloomberg. Then, after that, he’ll be battered with questions from the House Energy and Commerce Committee over allegations that Twitter is biased against conservatives.