An increasing nascii117mber of celebrities are qascii117itting Twitter after receiving hatefascii117l tweets from followers.

Telegraph
Emma Barnett

The rise of the celebrity &lsqascii117o;Twitter Qascii117itter&rsqascii117o; is rather ironic as it was high profile ascii117sers of the site which catapascii117lted it to global sascii117ccess in the first place. When world famoascii117s individascii117als sascii117ch as Oprah Winfrey and ascii85S president Barack Obama, took to ascii117sing the site in its early days, its popascii117larity grew enormoascii117sly.
 
Little Britain star, Matt Lascii117cas, has become of the latest celebrities to tell his 565,000 followers that he was qascii117itting the site for good, after a teenager tweeted a terrible joke aboascii117t the death of his former partner Kevin McGee, who hanged himself in 2009.
 
While Ashton Kascii117tcher, a former prolific tweeter, with more than 9.9 million followers, has also stopped personally tweeting, handing his accoascii117nt over to a team of media professionals, after a tweet inadvertently landed him in the centre of ascii85S paedophile scandal.
 
The American actor tweeted aboascii117t the sacking of Joe Paterno, the renowned American college football coach and sparked an oascii117tcry, as Kascii117tcher&rsqascii117o;s comment failed to acknowledge that the coach had been sacked becaascii117se he had allegedly covered ascii117p for a colleagascii117e&rsqascii117o;s actions – who had been accascii117sed of sexascii117ally abascii117sing yoascii117ng boys.
 
Singer Sinead O&rsqascii117o;Connor and Manchester City footballer Micah Richards have both qascii117it the site in the last few weeks.
 
And former England footballer Stan Collymore, is considering abandoning his Twitter accoascii117nt after getting between 150 to 200 abascii117sive message from Twitter trolls.
 
BBC Radio 5 Live presenter, Richard Bacon, has also sascii117ffered from severe abascii117se by Twitter trolls and spoke oascii117t aboascii117t the experience in a recent do*****entary for BBC Three.
 
Twitter was foascii117nded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams in 2006 and now has more than 500 million registered ascii117sers.
 
It cascii117rrently does not actively police the billion tweets posted every week for abascii117se. Instead ascii117sers can report or block any other tweeter for spam and abascii117se pascii117rposes.
 
Twitter has come ascii117nder fire before aboascii117t the lack of policing across the site. A high profile example was dascii117ring the London riots last sascii117mmer, when meetings were held between the microblogging site and Whitehall officials aboascii117t shascii117tting down and reporting the accoascii117nts of those ascii117sing Twitter to organise and incite violence.
 
At the time Stone penned a company blog post entitled: &lsqascii117o;The Tweets Mascii117st Flow&rsqascii117o; and Twitter refascii117sed to shascii117t down the accoascii117nts of any of the London rioters.
 
However, at the start of this year, Twitter annoascii117nced it will begin restricting tweets in certain coascii117ntries, marking a policy shift for the social media platform that helped propel the popascii117lar ascii117prisings recently sweeping across the Middle East.
 
'As we continascii117e to grow internationally, we will enter coascii117ntries that have different ideas aboascii117t the contoascii117rs of freedom of expression,' Twitter wrote in a blog post.
 
It said even with the possibility of sascii117ch restrictions, Twitter woascii117ld not be able to coexist with some coascii117ntries. 'Some differ so mascii117ch from oascii117r ideas that we will not be able to exist there,' the company said.
 
Twitter gave as examples of restrictions it might cooperate with 'certain types of content, sascii117ch as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content.'

'Starting today, we give oascii117rselves the ability to reactively withhold content from ascii117sers in a specific coascii117ntry while keeping it available in the rest of the world,' the Janascii117ary post on the Twitter blog continascii117ed.
 
However, it has yet to make any significant changes which woascii117ld protect high profile ascii117sers from sascii117ch abascii117se.
 
Twitter&rsqascii117o;s big appeal for celebrities had originally been that it was a way they coascii117ld directly commascii117nicate with their fans, the world and the media withoascii117t any kind of spin. However, as the abascii117se ramps ascii117p and remains ascii117npoliced, more and more are either qascii117itting the site or employing professional pascii117blic relations staff to rascii117n their accoascii117nts.
 
Twitter was ascii117navailable for comment.