Meghan McCain is 'Thinking About Quitting' Twitter: It's Become a 'Darker, Uglier Place'

On Wednesday morning, Meghan McCain once again railed against "straw man arguments" that blame Fox News and GOP politicians for causing the "pandemic of the unvaccinated," but the far more interesting tidbit came when the conservative co-host said she's debating quitting Twitter when she leaves The View in a few weeks. During a discussion about ID requirements on social media, McCain said that Twitter has become a "darker, uglier place" over the past year, so much so that she's mulling an exit from her favorite platform.

McCain's revelation came during a Hot Topic about Idris Elba's campaign to verify the identity of all social media users to prevent anonymous trolling, an idea that all five co-hosts agreed with. "I am subjected daily to racist attacks on social media. I'm talking daily. Sometimes in the hundreds, sometimes in the thousands," said Sunny Hostin. "It's painful, it's hurtful, and it's always from someone who has a cat icon, a flag icon, a frog icon, an eagle icon. And they are, I believe, just Twitter thugs, social media thugs, hiding in their momma's basements."

McCain, who has discussed social media backlash on the show before, backed up Hostin's statement. "It's a free country, you can say whatever you want. We have freedom of speech," said the conservative. "But you can't say whatever you want without consequences. And I think if you are going to send racist notes to View hosts, to anyone in the world, if you're going to harass women, if you're going to tell them you want them raped and killed, I think your employer should know about it."

"Candidly, I was talking with my husband last night — I've been on Twitter 13 years, which is a really long time to be on Twitter. I'm actually thinking about quitting it," revealed McCain. "I have a lot of followers on there and it's been an incredible platform to talk to people and read the news and everything. But definitely in the past year, since the pandemic, it's become a noticeably more darker, uglier place, even in the cesspool of what social media has always been."

SHOULD SOCIAL MEDIA BE VERIFIED VIA ID? After racist online attacks on Black athletes during the #EuroCup, actor Idris Elba wants social media sites to make users prove their identities so they cannot troll people anonymously — the co-hosts discuss. https://t.co/f8u2wbJuik pic.twitter.com/Biiu1hUZ5S

— The View (@TheView) July 21, 2021

The co-host added that "it's disturbing" to see the insults levied on Twitter, particularly towards those in the public eye. "I don't think that just because you're on social media and you're a public person, the tradeoff should be that you should accept to have racist things sent to Sunny, or things about wanting yourself to be killed and harmed," said McCain. "Things that do real damage to your mental and emotional health."

"So, stay tuned," teased McCain. "When I leave the show, I may quit Twitter the same day for this reason."

Could Meghan McCain really be leaving Twitter? It's doubtful, but that hasn't stopped some View-watchers from popping the champagne...

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Claire Spellberg Lustig is the Senior Editor at Primetimer and a scholar of The View. Follow her on Twitter at @c_spellberg.