Antisemitic tweet gets Ye kicked off Twitter again

Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, has been suspended from Twitter after he tweeted an image of a swastika blended with a Star of David, less than two weeks after he returned to the platform.

The suspension took place hours after Ye praised Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in an interview on InfoWars, a website hosted by the rightwing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

Ye was one of several high-profile Twitter users whose accounts were banned or restricted on the site who then had them reinstated after Elon Musk took over as owner.

Ye’s account was unlocked on 21 November, having previously been restricted for tweeting an antisemitic message.

Musk tweeted yesterday: “I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended.”

Musk has previously described his approach to content moderation as: “If in doubt, let the speech exist.” As well as reinstating Donald Trump’s account, Musk has declared a “general amnesty” for previously suspended accounts. Musk did not clarify whether Ye’s suspension would be permanent.

Since Musk took over Twitter in October, hate speech has proliferated significantly across the social media platform.

On Friday, the New York Times reported new findings from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the Anti-Defamation League and other organisations that monitor social media. According to the findings, within two weeks of Musk’s takeover, antisemitic posts increased by more than 61%.

Norm Coleman and Matt Brooks, leaders of the Republican Jewish Coalition, condemned Ye’s comments, saying: “Given his praise of Hitler, it can’t be overstated that Kanye West is a vile, repellent bigot who has targeted the Jewish community with threats and Nazi-style defamation. Conservatives who have mistakenly indulged Kanye West must make it clear that he is a pariah. Enough is enough.”

Yesterday, Joe Biden used Twitter to express fresh condemnation of antisemitism and political leaders who tolerate it, passively or otherwise.

“I just want to make a few things clear: the Holocaust happened. Hitler was a demonic figure. And instead of giving it a platform, our political leaders should be calling out and rejecting antisemitism wherever it hides. Silence is complicity,” the US president tweeted.

Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, echoed the sentiments yesterday. In an interview with CNN, Greenblatt said: “Antisemitism has been described … as the oldest hatred. It existed before Kanye, it will persist long after Kanye.”