Boris Johnson today laid into Wiley after thousands boycotted Twitter for 48 hours over its failure to close his account while Instagram declined to remove any of the rapper’s anti-Semitic and racist posts at all.
The Prime Minister believes the grime artist’s messages were ‘abhorrent’ and warned that ‘social media companies need to go much further and faster in removing hateful content. The message is clear – Twitter needs to do better on this’, his official spokesman said.
Britain’s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has today written to Twitter boss Jack Dorsey and Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg saying: ‘This cannot be allowed to stand. Your inaction amounts to complicity.’
They are furious after Twitter chose to delete around 10 of Wiley’s anti-Semitic tweets rather than suspend his account for good after he compared Jews to the Ku Klux Klan and shared a wild conspiracy theory that four out five slave owners were Jewish.
Both Instagram and Twitter have insisted that he was stopped from using his accounts for a week since last Friday – but the so-called ‘Godfather of Grime’ has still published new incendiary posts since then.
Wiley, 41, was handed an MBE by Prince William in 2018 for services to British music – but critics have now called on him to be stripped of the honour for his foul comments with police also reportedly calling at his east London home.
Lord Sugar, Rachel Riley, Gary Lineker and Tracy-Ann Oberman are leading the Twitter ‘walkout’ that began at 9am today after accusing the company of ‘amplifying hate’ and not providing a ‘safe space’ for Jews.
Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, insists there is ‘no place for hate speech’.
But the social media giant has not deleted any of the same messages on Wiley’s Instagram account at all – with the British grime star still posting videos where he stands by his anti-Semitic claims including his bizarre conspiracy that Jews are systematically exploiting Black artists in the music industry.
Boris Johnson is the latest big name to call Twitter out on why it took so long for posts by Wiley to be removed. They asserted Jews are systematically exploiting Black artists in the music industry and claims about Jewish control of the slave trade
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Published by Associated Newspapers Ltd
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