Out Magazine defends profile of gay internet troll Milo Yiannopoulos
Out Magazine has defended itself amid a tirade of fury for profiling gay internet troll Milo Yiannopoulos.
Yiannopoulos, a popular figure on the ‘alt-right’, has seen his profile rise thanks to attention-grabbing bigoted comments and his support of Donald Trump, whom he refers to as ‘daddy’.
The high-profile troll was banned from Twitter earlier this year after allegedly encouraging a wave of racist and sexist abuse directed at Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones.
Despite frequently using his homosexuality as a defence against accusations of racism, Yiannopoulos previously said he would ‘cure’ himself of it if he could.
He was profiled by Out Magazine this week, with the publication portraying him glowingly as the “Internet’s greatest supervillain” and “a professional mischief maker”.
Many were shocked by the magazine’s uncritical approach to Yiannopoulos.
One commenter wrote: “Out Magazine really equated Milo Yiannopoulos’ white supremacist bullsh*t to being an ‘internet super villain’ like he’s The Riddler”.
Another quipped: “Out magazine: Milo Yiannopoulos is not a white supremacist… he’s an alt-right super villain who is trés trendy.”
A reader added: “The fact Out Magazine would run an uncritical story about Milo would be like, I dunno, the Forward in 1933 w/a photo spread of Goebbels?”
The magazine hit bat at complaints in an Editor’s Note.
It states: “It should not need saying that the views expressed by the subject of this piece in no way represent the opinions of this magazine, but in this era of social media tribalism, the mere act of covering a contentious person can be misinterpreted as an endorsement.
“If LGBTQ media takes its responsibilities seriously we can’t shy away from covering queer people who are at the center of this highly polarised election year, and we ask you to assess Milo Yiannopoulos, the focus of this profile, on his own words without mistaking them for ours.”
