Grime artist Wiley (Grime is a genre of electronic music that emerged in London in the early 2000s) has been permanently banned from Twitter, five days after posting anti-Semitic remarks, according to the BBC.
This followed a 48-hour boycott of Twitter by many users over what they said had been an unacceptable delay in dealing with the offending tweets.
One of Wiley’s tweets read: ‘I don’t care about Hitler, I care about black people’, and compared the Jewish community to the Ku Klux Klan.
The report said Twitter did not delete that or other tweets, or issue its first temporary ban, until later in the weekend.
Yesterday, the company issued a statement saying: ‘We are sorry we did not move faster.’
This came after Facebook and Instagram deleted the music star’s accounts for ‘repeated violations’ of their rules.
Twitter said that it has taken a similar step because the artist had broken its hateful conduct policy.
The San Francisco-based firm had previously temporarily suspended Wiley and left many of his past tweets visible. But it said it had decided to now make the ban permanent and wipe all his past posts from its platform ‘upon further consideration’.
Its statement said: ‘We deeply respect the concerns shared by the Jewish community and online safety advocates.’
Wiley’s tweets prompted 48-hour boycott of Twitter by many users – including celebrities and MPs – from Monday morning. Organisers accused the social network of giving Wiley ‘48 hours of pure race hate’.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews said both Twitter and Facebook had been slow to act, adding that this was ‘just not good enough’. The organisation said: ‘Social media companies have not been strong or fast enough about tackling racism, misogyny or homophobia.’