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Milo Yiannopoulos
Milo Yiannopoulos at LeWeb13 Conference
Born	(1983-10-18) 18 October 1983 (age 41) Greece
Nationality	British
Occupation	Journalist

Milo Yiannopoulos (Template:Lang-el, born 18 October 1983) is a British journalist and entrepreneur. He founded The Kernel, an online tabloid magazine about technology, which he sold to Daily Dot Media in 2014. He is involved in the Gamergate controversy. He is the Technology Editor for Breitbart.com, a United States-based conservative news and opinion website.

Education

Yiannopoulos was born in Greece, but was raised by a middle-class family in Kent. His mother is Jewish, and his stepfather is an architect. Yiannopoulos attended the University of Manchester, dropping out without graduating. He then attended Wolfson College, Cambridge where he studied English literature for two years before dropping out. Regarding dropping out of university, in 2012 he told Forbes, "I try to tell myself I'm in good company, but ultimately it doesn't say great things about you unless you go on to terrific success in your own right." In 2015, in an article titled "I dropped out of Manchester and Cambridge but it’s honestly fine", he wrote that he didn't believe a college degree was necessary for success, and that he believed he had achieved success without one.

Career

Yiannopoulos originally intended to write theatre criticism, but became interested in technology journalism whilst investigating women in computing for The Daily Telegraph in 2009.

As a gay Roman Catholic, Yiannopoulos has debated gay marriage on Newsnight, and on Channel 4's 10 O'Clock Live with Boy George. In March 2015 he appeared on The Big Questions, debating on topics relating to feminism and discrimination against men in the United Kingdom.

The Telegraph Tech Start-Up 100

Yiannopoulos organised a method of ranking the most promising technology start-ups in Europe, The Telegraph Tech Start-Up 100, in 2011. It operated through an events company, called Wrong Agency, that Yiannopoulos had started with David Rosenberg, a friend from Cambridge University. The company was dissolved shortly after the ceremony that awarded the top start-up. Mike Butcher of TechCrunch said the main prize had been given to music streaming service Spotify, even though his casting vote had gone to the controversial payday loan company Wonga, because the Telegraph considered Wonga's reputation objectionable. The Start-Up 100 did not return in 2012.

The Kernel

Together with university friends David Rosenberg and David Haywood Smith, journalist Stephen Pritchard and former Telegraph employee Adrian McShane, Yiannopoulos launched The Kernel in November 2011 to "fix European technology journalism." The Kernel was at that time owned by Sentinel Media.

In 2012, the online magazine became embroiled in a legal dispute with one of its contributors after he said it failed to pay money owed to him. The Kernel closed in March 2013, with thousands of pounds owed to former contributor Jason Hesse when he won a summary judgement from an employment tribunal against parent company Sentinel Media. Margot Huysman, whom Yiannopoulos had appointed associate editor and was one of people seeking payment, said that many working for the site had been "screwed over" personally and financially. Yiannopoulos also threatened, via email, to release embarrassing details and photographs of a Kernel contributor who sought payment for their work for the site and he also accused the contributor of being behind the "majority of damage to The Kernel". The unnamed contributor told the Guardian that the emails had been referred to the police.

German venture capital vehicle BERLIN42 acquired The Kernel's assets in early 2013. The website displayed plans for a relaunch in August 2013 with fresh investment and Yiannopoulos reinstated as editor-in-chief. BERLIN42 founding partner Aydogan Ali Schosswald would join its newly formed publishing company, Kernel Media, as chief executive. Yiannopoulos personally paid six former contributors money that the defunct company was unable to pay.

In 2014, The Kernel was acquired by the parent company of The Daily Dot, Daily Dot Media. He stepped down as Editor-in-Chief but remained an advisor to the company.

Gamergate

Yiannopoulos was responsible for early news coverage of the Gamergate controversy, criticizing what he saw as the politicization of video game culture by "an army of sociopathic feminist programmers and campaigners, abetted by achingly politically correct American tech bloggers." In December 2014, he announced he was working on a book about Gamergate.

As part of his coverage of Gamergate, he published correspondence from GameJournoPros, an email list where members of the video game press discussed industry matters. Kyle Orland, the creator of the list, responded to the leak on Ars Technica, admitting that he had written a message saying several things that he "soon came to regret", but also defending the list as "a place for business competitors ... to discuss issues of common professional interest". Carter Dotson of pocketgamer.biz said that the list was indicative of an echo chamber effect in the gaming press.

Ryan Cooper of The Week argued that Yiannopoulos "had little but sneering contempt for gamers" beforehand, highlighting Yiannopoulos' comments describing gamers as 'pungent beta male bollock-scratchers and twelve-year-olds' and 'a bit sad'.

During the controversy, Yiannopoulos claimed that he received a syringe filled with an unknown substance through the post, as well as a dead animal, though he refused to go to police.

In May 2015, a meetup in Washington D.C. for supporters arranged by Yiannopolis and Christina Hoff Sommers was targeted by a bomb threat made over Twitter, according to the local police responding to information supplied by the FBI. Similarly, three months later, an event with Society of Professional Journalists in August 2015 was also targeted by bomb threats, forcing the evacuation of an event with Yiannopoulos and Sommers.

Breitbart Tech

In October 2015, the Breitbart News Network placed Yiannopoulos in charge of its new "Breitbart Tech" section, which he said will "be free speech central-and we'll talk about stuff people really care about: Freedom, free speech, love, sex, death, money and porn." The vertical has six full-time staff, including an esports specialist.

Media coverage

Yiannopoulos was twice featured in Wired UK's yearly top 100 most influential people in Britain's digital economy: At 84 in 2011 and at 98 in 2012. He was called the "pit bull of tech media" by Ben Dowell of The Observer.

Other activities

In October 2015, Yiannopoulos and feminist Julie Bindel were scheduled to participate in the University of Manchester Free Speech and Secular Society's debate ′From liberation to censorship: does modern feminism have a problem with free speech?′, but the student union banned Bindel, then later also Yiannopoulos. The union cited Bindel's comments on transgender women and Yiannopoulos' opinions on rape culture, which they stated were both in breach of the union′s safe space policy.

In November 2015, Yiannopoulos was scheduled to give a talk at Bristol University. After protesters attempted to have Yiannopoulos banned from the university, the event was turned into a debate between Yiannopoulos and The Daily Telegraph blogger and feminist Rebecca Reid.

In January 2016, Twitter removed the blue "verification" checkmark from Yiannopoulos' (@Nero) Twitter account. Twitter has a policy of not commenting on individual cases and so has not explained the reason for the removal of verification. Some news outlets speculated that Yiannopoulos had violated its speech and harassment codes, while others worried that Twitter was targeting conservatives.

References

1. "Crunchbase Profile". Crunchbase.com. Retrieved 14 October 2015.
2. ^ Brown, Kristen (27 October 2015). "The ultimate troll: The terrifying allure of Gamergate icon Milo Yiannopoulos". Fusion. Retrieved 6 November 2015.
3. Ng, David (29 October 2015). "Gamergate advocate Milo Yiannopoulos blames feminists for SXSW debacle". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 6 November 2015.
4. ^ Milo Yiannopoulos (13 February 2015). "I dropped out of Manchester and Cambridge but it's honestly fine". The Tab.
5. ^ Hicks, Jennifer (19 December 2012). "Digital Media's Citizen Kane". Forbes. Retrieved 6 November 2015.
6. ^ Arthur, Charles (12 September 2012). "The Kernel sued by former contributors for non-payment". guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 12 September 2012.
7. Newsnight, 15 March 2012, BBC Television, distributed by the BBC.
8. 10 O'Clock Live, 17 February 2011, Channel 4.
9. "BBC One - The Big Questions: Series 8, Episode 10". BBC. 15 March 2015. Retrieved 29 August 2015.
10. Yiannopoulos, Milo (10 November 2011). "It's time to fix European technology journalism". The Kernel. Retrieved 12 September 2012.
11. Charles Arthur. "The Kernel to close as debts stay unpaid". the Guardian. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
12. Charles Arthur. "The Kernel could face £11,000 payout order". the Guardian. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
13. ^ Williams-Grut, Oscar (19 December 2012). "The Kernel's back to make new enemies". Independent on Sunday. Retrieved 6 June 2013.
14. "The Kernel acquired by The Daily Dot Media; founder moves on". Tech.eu. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
15. Yiannopoulos, Milo (1 September 2014). "Feminist bullies tearing the video game industry apart". breitbart.com. Retrieved 29 August 2015.
16. Griggs, Brandon (16 October 2014). "Behind the furor over #Gamergate". CNN. Retrieved 29 August 2015.
17. "GamerGate – what is it, and why are gamers so angry?". Metro. 15 October 2014. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
18. Yiannopoulos, Milo (15 December 2014). "I'm Writing a Book about #GamerGate". Retrieved 29 August 2015.
19. Johnson, Eric (10 October 2014). "Understanding the Jargon of Gamergate". Recode. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
20. Lirios, Dino (19 September 2014). "Scandal in the Gaming Community: Elite Gaming Journalists Collude to Censor Stories". ChinaTopix. Retrieved 29 August 2015.
21. Orland, Kyle (18 September 2014). "Addressing allegations of "collusion" among gaming journalists". Ars Technica. Retrieved 17 October 2014.
22. Dotson, Carter (26 September 2014). "Escaping the echo chamber: GamerGaters and journalists have more in common than they think". Pocketgamer.biz. Retrieved 25 October 2014.
23. Cooper, Ryan (7 October 2014). "Intel's awful capitulation to #gamergate's sexist thugs". The Week. Retrieved 9 October 2014.
24. Yiannopoulos, Milo. "12-year-old console gamers are being 'raped' by dorky weirdos on grand theft auto". Breitbart. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
25. Bokhari, Allum (25 September 2014). "#GamerGate – An Issue With Two Sides". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved 19 October 2014.
26. Totilo, Stephen (12 October 2014). "Another Woman In Gaming Flees Home Following Death Threats". Kotaku. Gawker Media. Retrieved 19 October 2014.
27. Yiannopoulos, Milo. "Twitter post". Twitter. Retrieved 16 March 2015.
28. Good, Owen S. (3 May 2015). "Bomb threat clears out GamerGate gathering in Washington D.C." Polygon. Vox Media. Retrieved 11 July 2015.
29. Stephen Feller (15 August 2015). "Bomb threat interrupts GamerGate panel at journalism conference". UPI.
30. Erik Kain (16 August 2015). "#GamerGate Event Evacuated After Multiple Bomb Threats". Forbes.
31. "BREAKING: Gamer Gate Controversy Prompts Evacuation Of Koubek Center In Miami". Rise Miami News.
32. "SPJ AirPlay event evacuated after multiple bomb threats". GamePolitics.com. 15 August 2015.
33. "Breitbart brings its conservative take to tech journalism". New York: CNN Money. 28 October 2015. Retrieved 7 November 2015.
34. Brustein, Joshua (27 October 2015). "Breitbart News Is Preparing to Troll Tech". Bloomberg Business. Retrieved 6 November 2015.
35. "Wired 100 2011". Wired.co.uk. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
36. "Wired 100 2012". Wired.co.uk. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
37. Dowell, Ben (8 July 2012). "Milo Yiannopoulos – meet the 'pit bull' of tech media". The Observer. Retrieved 29 August 2015.
38. "Milo Yiannopoulos, Julie Bindel banned from U.K. university's debate on censorship". Washington Times. Retrieved 14 October 2015.
39. Julie Bindel. "No platform: my exclusion proves this is an anti-feminist crusade". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 October 2015.
40. "UPDATED Statement from the Students' Union 05.10.2015 @ University of Manchester Students' Union". Manchesterstudentsunion.com. Retrieved 14 October 2015.
41. Churchill, L. (27 October 2015). "Controversial Bristol talk by Milo Yiannopoulos could be turned into a debate". Bristol Post. Retrieved 17 December 2015.
42. Hunter, Daniel (4 December 2015). "Milo Yiannopoulos v Rebecca Reid: What happened in last week's debate". The Tab. Retrieved 17 December 2015.
43. http://www.buzzfeed.com/alexkantrowitz/twitter-unverifies-milo-yiannopoulos-leading-to-speech-polic#.gdrm4eArem
44. http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/twitter-refuses-say-why-it-has-punished-uk-journalist-removing-verified-status
45. Noah Kulwin (Jan 10, 2016) http://recode.net/2016/01/10/can-twitter-police-the-madness-on-its-platform-the-fallout-from-the-milo-yiannopoulous-controversy-suggests-not/. Recode
46. http://www.businessinsider.com/milo-yiannopoulos-nero-unverified-by-twitter-2016-1?r=UK&IR=T
47. http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/14/how-one-conservatives-lost-twitter-badge-spells-trouble-for-free-expression/
48. http://theweek.com/articles/598597/why-twitter-punishing-conservatives
49. http://byzvest.com/2016/01/09/twitter-goes-to-war-with-conservatives-unverifies-milo-yiannopoulos-for-opposing-views/

External links

• Milo Yiannopoulos at IMDb

• 1983 births
• Living people
• Breitbart London
• Breitbart News Network people
• British chief executives
• British columnists
• British media company founders
• British people of Greek descent
• British people of Jewish descent
• British poets
• British Roman Catholic writers
• Christians of Jewish descent
• Critics of feminism
• Free speech activists
• Gay writers
• LGBT journalists from the United Kingdom
• LGBT Roman Catholics
• Technology journalists