Infamous SF homelessness critic says he was fired by Twitter one day after news broke of his hiring

Darcel Jackson, a San Franciscan who has been homeless for two years due to unemployment, confronts Greg Gopman, left, about an unanswered email regarding ideas that could help the homeless at the Nourse Auditorium on Wednesday, March 11, 2015. less Darcel Jackson, a San Franciscan who has been homeless for two years due to unemployment, confronts Greg Gopman, left, about an unanswered email regarding ideas that could help the homeless at the Nourse ... more Photo: Amy Osborne, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Amy Osborne, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Infamous SF homelessness critic says he was fired by Twitter one day after news broke of his hiring 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

Less than one day after headlines broke about Twitter hiring Greg Gopman as a contractor to work on its developing virtual reality initiative, the social media company has fired him, according to a post on his personal Facebook page.

Gopman grew to infamy in 2013, when he published a Facebook post (then doubled down on his point), decrying San Francisco's homeless population as "degenerates" and saying the city is "overrun by crazy, homeless, drug dealers, dropouts, and trash."

"The difference is in other cosmopolitan cities, the lower part of society keep to themselves," the post read. "They sell small trinkets, beg coyly, stay quiet, and generally stay out of your way. They realize it's a privilege to be in the civilized part of town and view themselves as guests. And that's okay. In downtown SF the degenerates gather like hyenas, spit, urinate, taunt you, sell drugs, get rowdy, they act like they own the center of the city."

Since his comments in 2013, Gopman has more or less attempted to make nice with the city, proposing homelessness solutions (at least one of which was profitable) and working with city officials on ways to help people out of poverty.

It seemed that things were beginning to go his way again when Twitter contracted him to work on its emerging VR initiative. The news of the hire, which hit headlines Tuesday, also prompted TechCrunch to remind its readers of Gopman's unsavory comments, and to position him as antithetical to Twitter's ongoing, and at times floundering, push to curb online harassment on their network.

Whether it was meant to or not, the article had a sudden impact. According to Gopman's Facebook, he was fired after less than a month working at Twitter because "[TechCrunch] wrote a smash piece on me last night and [Twitter] comms didn't want to deal with it."

Twitter has declined to comment on this story.

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