Milo Yiannopoulos, senior editor for Breitbart News, has once again shown why facts and research are crucial tools for any journalist or public speaker to have.

From a man who said in a March 2016 article that the alt-right has an addiction to provocation, Yiannopoulos has been no stranger to public attention drawn by comments he has made.

The most recent bout of media attention comes after Yiannopoulos defended the idea of “13 year olds” having sex with “older men.” One of the main issues with this rhetoric stems from the fact that he himself is a gay man spreading myths that have historically been used to oppose the LGBTQ community.

“In the homosexual world, particularly, some of those relationships between younger boys and older men — the sort of ‘coming of age’ relationships — the relationships in which those older men help those young boys to discover who they are and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable sort of rock,” Yiannopoulos said.

These sorts of outlandish and extremist comments from Yiannopoulos are nothing new. He continuously throws out his own version of the truth without any kind of statistical or researchable data to back it up.

In an age where Kelleyanne Conway coined the phrase “alternative facts,” it’s more important than ever for public figures like Yiannopoulos to use their influence responsibly. Thus far he has been anything but responsible.

“Sex-negative social justice warriors always banging on about ‘affirmative consent’ are secretly the first to strap on a gimp mask and demand to get f****d 11 ways,” Yiannopoulos wrote in an email to Vox reporter Zack Beauchamp. “Which, don’t get me wrong, sounds great!”

He declared his birthday “World Patriarchy Day,” claimed he “went gay” so he “didn’t have to deal with nutty broads” and created the “Yiannopoulos Privilege Grant,” a scholarship available only to white men to put them “on equal footing with their female, queer and ethnic minority classmates.”

Yiannopoulos has designed his speeches to anger as many people as possible, and it has definitely worked. There’s nowhere that Yiannopoulos has been where he did not offend, insult or disgust the people around him.

Yiannopoulos visited West Virginia University Dec. 1 and attacked a professor using an anti-gay slur to describe him and mocked his appearance.

E. Gordon Gee, WVU president, sent a letter Dec. 2 in regard to the protest stemming from Yiannopoulos’ appearance on campus.

“Many voiced their opposition to [Yiannopoulos] being on our campus and were appalled at the message he delivered,” Gee said. “I completely understand and appreciate that perspective. However, I also understand and appreciate the other perspective — from those who genuinely wanted to hear him speak. As President of West Virginia University, I will always support the decision to bring a speaker to campus and our community — no matter how controversial. We never want to censor a person’s right to free speech. It is through listening to people who think differently from others that we learn about the world and discover who we really are.”

While we are strong proponents and defenders of the First Amendment, there must be a line drawn somewhere, particularly when matters of harrassment are involved. And in the case of individuals like Yiannopoulos, who does nothing but continuously promote a hateful rhetoric, having influence on such a large scale should be completely reconsidered.