Twitter suspended Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy from its platform after he published an email exchange with an Insider editor. The apparent basis of the suspension was that the screenshot contained the email address of the editor in question. Meanwhile, the editor was not suspended by Twitter, even though he shared Portnoy’s email address in a tweet he later deleted.
Portnoy is currently embroiled in a scandal involving several sexual assault allegations and has been publicly railing against the outlet since it published an early November exposé featuring the accounts of several women who said they were subjected to “violent,” “painful,” and “humiliating” sexual experiences with Portnoy.
What are the details?
On Tuesday, Portnoy announced via an Instagram Story that Twitter suspended him for sharing emails with Insider editor in chief Nicholas Carlson.
The message, according to Portnoy, showed a Barstool Sports employee requesting that Carlson appear on Portnoy’s podcast to discuss the story, but Carlson declined and said that the Insider report spoke for itself.
He captioned the screenshot, “Nothing like ‘journalists’ who write slanderous hit pieces, put it behind a paywall, use it as marketing to make money and then refuse to defend their work. There is clear evidence that refutes their ‘reporting’ that @businessinsider refuses to acknowledge. Meanwhile I’m an open book.”
At least two women told the outlet that Portnoy violently choked them during sex, filmed them without their consent, and spit into their mouths, among other lurid behaviors. A third woman said that she was suicidal following her sexual experience with the Barstool Sports founder.
While the sex was said to be initially consensual, the women told the outlet that the encounters quickly turned violent.
Portnoy has denied all allegations, and in a statement on the matter, his attorney told Insider that a variety of the accusations contained in the report “embody half-truths, are highly misleading, lack appropriate context, and appear to have been provided to you by individuals whose motivations and trustworthiness should at least have been fully vetted.”