Infamous pharmaceuticals exec Martin Shkreli banned from Twitter after harassing journalist
A former pharmaceuticals executive who was widely denounced for artificially inflating the cost of HIV treatments is once again making waves for all the wrong reasons after being banned from Twitter following the ‘targeted harassment’ of a journalist.
Martin Shkreli took to the social network in pursuit of a date to accompany him to Donald Trump’s inauguration, targeting freelance journalist Lauren Duca with a private message reading: 'Chey. I have a +1 to the inaug if u wanna be my +1.’
Unfortunately for Shkreli this overture elicited nothing but a very public knock-back after Duca savagely turned down the proposal by stating ‘I would rather eat my own organs’, before posting a screengrab of the exchange.
What followed was a campaign of ‘targeted harassment’ with Shkreli abusing Ducva by calling her a ‘cold you know what’ and altering his profile portrait to appear to show the pair cuddled up on a couch whilst also posting a creepy montage of pictures of the writer and declaring his ‘crush’.
This prompted a direct appeal to Jack Dorsey from Duca asking ‘How is this allowed’ with Shkreli’s account being disabled shortly afterwards.
How is this allowed @jack pic.twitter.com/Wof8MlYHTL
— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) January 8, 2017
Shkreli is a former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals who courted notoriety after inflating the cost of an HIV drug from $13.50 to $750 per tablet.