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Kanye West’s anti-Semitic posts deleted by Twitter and Instagram

October 10, 2022

Twitter confirmed on Sunday that it had deleted a tweet from Ye, the musician and fashion designer formerly known as Kanye West, and temporarily banned him from posting any further posts on the platform, as the fallout from his recent anti-Semitic comments on social media continued.

Ye’s account, @kanyewest, has been “locked for violating Twitter policies,” a Twitter spokesperson said in an email on Sunday, declining to elaborate on which policy he violated. The account shows that a recent tweet “violated the Twitter rules”.

Although the tweet is no longer visible on his account, screenshots shared widely on social media show that Ye said he would go “death con 3” on “JEWISH PEOPLE”, an apparent reference to Defcon, the US Army Defense Readiness System. In the tweet, he used anti-Semitic tropes and said he couldn’t be anti-Semitic “because black people are actually Jewish too.”

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Twitter’s action comes after Instagram deleted a post from Ye’s account and also temporarily locked his account. A spokesperson for Meta, Instagram’s parent company formerly known as Facebook, said in an email that the platform “removed content from @kanyewest for violating our policies and imposed a restriction on account. We may place restrictions on accounts that repeatedly violate our rules, for example, we may temporarily block them from posting, commenting, or sending DMs. Screenshots of the message show that Ye had posted an apparent conversation with rapper Diddy, employing anti-Semitic tropes to allege he was influenced by Jewish people.

After Ye was restricted by Instagram, he took to Twitter – in a tweet still visible on the platform – to criticize Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, writing, “Look at this Mark. How did you go kick me off instagram,” along with a photo of the two together in a group.

The Saturday posts came shortly after Ye tweeted a photo of a baseball cap labeled “2024”, an apparent reference to the 2024 presidential election. The tweets were his first since 2020, when he tweeted “KANYE 2024”.

Ye’s social media posts have also drawn the attention of political and societal figures, with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.) chiding him in a tweet Sunday evening, writing, “There is absolutely no place in this country or in the world for anti-Semitism. . It is important to see how harmful and dangerous Kanye’s words are – not only to our Jewish brothers, sisters and brothers, but also to our collective society as a whole. We have to reject it…everywhere we see it. ”

Some on the right have come to Ye’s defense in recent days. Elon Musk — the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX who is embroiled in a legal battle over his reneged, and later rescinded, offer to buy Twitter — responded to his tweet about Zuckerberg, writing“Welcome to Twitter, my friend!”

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita (right) tweeted a link to an MSNBC blog post about Ye’s recent controversies, criticizing ‘the media’, which he said had ‘sued Kanye over his news fashion line, his independent thinking and for having opposite thoughts from the Hollywood norm. He then went on to say that his message “was specifically and clearly aimed at the hypocrisy of the Hollywood media and elites, and had nothing to do with other comments. I have an obvious, clear and substantial public and parliamentary record 100% support for the Jewish community and Israel.”

The blog post centered on the widespread backlash over Ye’s presentation during Paris Fashion Week last week of a t-shirt emblazoned with the words “WHITE LIVES MATTER.” The phrase, a response to the Black Lives Matter movement, has links to neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The shirt led Adidas, which has collaborated with Ye on footwear and apparel lines, to re-evaluate its partnership with him. Adidas said in a statement to various news outlets that “after repeated efforts to resolve the situation privately, we have made the decision to submit the partnership for review.”

Reps for Ye could not be reached for comment on Sunday evening..

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The controversies have reignited discussions about Ye’s documented struggles with bipolar disorder and, therefore, the limits of what can be explained by mental illness. “Please don’t let Kanye’s behavior misrepresent bipolar disorder as something that inherently makes us act so terribly,” said Cameron Kasky, a gun control advocate who has spoken publicly about having bipolar disorder. Twitter. “There are ups and downs, but bipolar disorder doesn’t restructure your core values” into something harmful, he said.