Ye’s Twitter suspension comes less than two months after Musk tweeted “Welcome back to Twitter, my friend!” on October 8. He was welcoming the rapper after a ban for similar antisemitic tweets. Musk said he expressed his concerns about the tweet to Ye and the rapper took it to the heart. However, Ye repeated the mistake on Thursday and ended up getting suspended once again. Musk says he tried his best to stop Ye from posting such hateful messages on Twitter. The Twitter CEO reached out to the rapper privately after the antisemitic tweet. But he wasn’t to listen, it seems. Ye publicly posted the screenshots of their conversation and chose to continue violating Twitter’s rule against inciting violence. As such, Musk had no other option but to ban him again. Hours before making those antisemitic tweets, Ye appeared on Alex Jones’ conspiracy theory channel InfoWars. He showed up for the interview with a full-face black mask. The rapper admitted to being a Nazi sympathizer and praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It appears he was determined to get suspended from Twitter on Thursday.
Twitter suspends Ye as it reinstates other controversial accounts
Over the past few weeks, Twitter has reinstated several controversial accounts, including that of former US president Donald Trump, who was suspended in early 2021 for inciting violence. Musk said the social media platform will only ban people who break the law. He wants to allow people to speak freely as long as their speech is legal. The company will de-amplify violent conduct, though. However, despite his “free speech absolutist” stance, Musk won’t tolerate just about everything, it seems. Ye’s suspension is an example that you can’t openly make hate posts and incite violence. Perhaps as the company explained yesterday, its policies haven’t changed since Musk’s takeover. The Twitter CEO tweeted “FAFO” (which stands for F*ck Around and Find Out) shortly after Ye’s suspension. This pretty much sums up the platform’s policies. It hasn’t been a smooth ride for Twitter since the $44 billion privatization in late October. But, after a chaotic first few weeks, things seemed to have settled down a bit. The company recently laid out its plans for the next chapter, aka Twitter 2.0. Former employees suggest Musk’s proposed changes for the platform may not work, but we will have to wait and see.
