A DAY after taking Twitter to task over racism and death threats, Stan Collymore has been accused of "vile hypocrisy" by his former lover, Ulrika Jonsson, who was the victim of domestic abuse and threats of violence during their relationship.
The former footballer, now a pundit, spoke out after being targeted by trolls this weekend for suggesting Liverpool striker Luis Suarez had dived to win a penalty against Aston Villa. "I accuse Twitter directly of not doing enough to combat racist/homophobic /sexist hate messages, all of which are illegal in the UK," he said.
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"It must be horrendous to be vilified for your beliefs, your colour or your sexuality. In no way do I agree with trolling or abuse on Twitter. The people that do it are pathetic cowards. But Stan is too. He is actually one of the people he's criticising."
Jonsson's comments may have prompted Collymore to quit the social networking site. "The account belonging to the former England footballer, who has more than 503,000 Twitter followers, appeared to have been taken offline on Thursday morning following a front-page story in the Sun," reports The Guardian.
"The move came as radio station TalkSport [where Collymore works] banned mentions of Twitter after accusing the site of failing to respond to racist abuse against Collymore."
The radio station said it would no longer promote the site or read out tweets on air. "It seems inconceivable that a hi-tech company with a market capitalisation of $30bn appears incapable of preventing racist and abusive tweets being broadcast across its platform," it said.