A publicity photo of Quinn Norton released on Tuesday by the New York Times. Image by New York Times

By Ari Feldman February 14, 2018

The New York Times announced a new hire on Tuesday afternoon. And then reversed the decision Tuesday night after Twitter users showed the writer’s tweets using homophobic slurs and bragging about befriending neo-Nazis, the Washington Post reported.

The Times’ editorial board announced it had hired Quinn Norton, a technology blogger, to be its lead opinion writer on “power, culture and consequences of technology.” Shortly after, Twitter erupted with screenshots of Norton’s past tweets, including one where she claims to be friends with Andrew Auernheimer, aka Weev, a white supremacist hacker who helps manage the Daily Stormer site.

The Times released a statement Tuesday evening from James Bennett, the editorial page editor, saying the tweets were “new information to us.”

Norton defended her tweets about Auernheimer by saying, “I believe white folks should engage with the racists in their life.”

Norton also said that she used the gay slur because she is a “queer activist” and wanted to use “their language” when speaking with members of the LGBT community. Norton also said that her use of the word “n****r” in tweets was because she was “trying to make a point” about the election of Barack Obama.

Contact Ari Feldman at feldman@forward.com or on Twitter @aefeldman

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