Elon Musk's frightening, immature vision for Twitter was on full display this past weekend after the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla entered the centre of a content moderation dispute sparked by Kanye West, also known as Ye.
On Friday evening, West made an appearance on Twitter for the first time since November 2020. He posted a blurry photo of himself and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg singing karaoke on Twitter along with the message, "Look at this Mark, How you going take me off Instagram."
The company revealed to The Hollywood Reporter that due to several rules violations, Instagram had really limited and erased content from West's account. Even if West's account was still reachable on Sunday, its ability to add new content is certainly currently banned.
The post that violated Instagram’s rules appears to have been a conversation between West and Sean “Diddy” Combs in which West invoked anti-semitic tropes and claimed that the other musician was under the control of “the Jewish people.” West’s most recent Instagram posts are all screenshots of texts.
Elon Musk, the future owner of Twitter, promptly intervened to welcome West back to the service despite the controversial artist’s most recent anti-Semitic remarks.
Musk’s gracious greeting seemed to have given West permission to continue, since West merely elaborated on his anti-semitic conspiracy in a tweet twelve hours later. On Saturday night, West tweeted, “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death [sic] con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” West tweeted on Saturday night. “… You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”
Despite Musk’s endorsement, Twitter took down the message that referred to anti-Jewish stereotypes frequently expressed by white nationalists and locked West’s account “due to a violation of Twitter’s policy,” a Twitter representative told TechCrunch.
West caused controversy during Paris Fashion Week by introducing a new line in a pop-up warehouse exhibition that featured a shirt with the message “White Lives Matter” just before causing havoc on Instagram and Twitter.
A significant portion of the fashion industry immediately opposed West after the event and spoke out in favor of Vogue Editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, whom West had assaulted for calling his prank “deeply offensive, violent and dangerous.”