‘Shalom’: Kanye returns to Twitter after ban for anti-Semitic posts
Kanye West has returned to Twitter with a provocative post after being banned from social media for anti-Semitic comments last month.
Kanye West is posting again.
“Shalom :)” the rapper wrote on Sunday night.
Hours earlier he tweeted, “Testing. Testing. Seeing if my Twitter is unblocked.”
In response, Twitter CEO Elon Musk wrote, “Don’t kill what ye hate. Save what ye love”
West, who now goes by Ye, was banned from Twitter and Instagram last month over a series of anti-Semitic social media posts.
Shalom : )
— ye (@kanyewest) November 20, 2022
On October 7, Kanye wrote on Instagram, “Ima use you as an example to show the Jewish people that told you to call me that no one can threaten or influence me.”
Several days later, the rapper tweeted, “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con [sic] 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.”
Defcon is a military term used as an alert system by the US armed forces.
Twitter removed Kanye’s tweet and also confirmed his account had been locked “due to a violation of Twitter’s policies”.
Don’t kill what ye hate
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2022
Save what ye love
His account was later restored but he has not posted for several weeks.
Musk has sparked outrage by reinstating banned accounts including former President Donald Trump.
Last month Musk revealed Kanye’s Twitter account was restored before his acquisition of the company.
“They did not consult with or inform me,” he wrote in response to a question.
Kanye was dropped by Adidas over the “harmful” and “dangerous” comments, costing him around $390 million.
During an interview with Piers Morgan, he refused to apologise for the tweet saying he knew it was racist but “I fought fire with fire”.
“I’m a different type of freedom fighter,” he said.
Later in the interview he acknowledged that he had caused “hurt and confusion”.
“I will say I’m sorry for the people that I hurt with the ‘def con’,” he told Morgan.
Musk mocks Mastodon
Meanwhile, Musk is taking aim at Mastodon, a rival social media network where many disgruntled users have fled following the billionaire’s takeover of Twitter.
The German-owned platform has seen an influx of Twitter refugees in recent weeks after a series of controversial decisions by Musk, including restoring Mr Trump’s account over the weekend.
Among the high-profile Mastodon defections include “God”, the popular @TheTweetOfGod parody account with 6.2 million followers which insists it’s “Not a Parody, Actually God”.
“Well, I’m out,” the account wrote.
“This is My final tweet. From now on you can find Me at [Mastodon]. It’s been a great ride, and the ride continues. F**k you Elon Musk, you anti-union, megalomaniacal, X Æ A-XII-son-calling piece of sh*t. Please retweet this and then join Me. Bye.”
🤣🤣💯🎯
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2022
What could be more fun than a social network consisting entirely of hall monitors!?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2022
But as the formerly niche microblogging platform siphons off users, not everyone is enjoying the experience.
One key difference is that, unlike Twitter which is one large central platform, Mastodon is a separate series of smaller, user-operated communities or “instances”, each with its own rules.
CNN columnist Jill Filipovic wrote: “So uh is anybody actually liking Mastodon? ‘It’s like Twitter, except less intuitive, more decentralised, more of an echo chamber, more moralising, and we’ve given basic things like ‘servers’ wholly unnecessary different names that actually mean something else (‘instances’)’. Oh OK sounds great.”
A number of Mastodon users have returned to Twitter to share their experiences of being banned by overzealous moderators.
Eleftherios Karapetsas, a digital wallet app developer from Germany, wrote in one viral tweet that he had been suspended from Mastodon after only a week for “being a capitalist”.
“I am not sure what that means,” he said, sharing a screenshot of his suspension notice.
Oh this is getting better. I can't even move my account to another server.
— Lefteris Karapetsas | Hiring for @rotkiapp (@LefterisJP) November 19, 2022
By suspending the account on the server the option to move it does not appear. I am stuck. pic.twitter.com/7Lzfi0XCjY
In the message, the server owner said they “might change my mind for a bunch of moneros”, a form of cryptocurrency.
He added that due to being suspended on one server, he was unable to transfer his account to another. “With account suspension and data deletion, basically the server owner can unilaterally decide to destroy [a] user’s account or hold them hostage?” he asked.
Karapetsas later revealed he had appealed the suspension and asked to be allowed to move his data to another server.
“They accepted but all my toots and media were deleted by the server admins. So could only move followers,” he said. “But honestly quite put off by Mastodon.”
Tracy Chou, developer of online safety app Block Party, also revealed she had been censored.
in 13 years on twitter i’ve never had a post removed, and in 3 weeks on mastodon i’ve already had something taken down for racism and sexism, ok pic.twitter.com/JhpKCxDNv0
— Tracy Chou 🌻 (@triketora) November 20, 2022
“In 13 years on Twitter I’ve never had a post removed, and in three weeks on Mastodon I’ve already had something taken down for racism and sexism, OK,” she wrote.
The offending post read: “For the last few years I’ve been almost exclusively reading books by authors who are non-male non-white non-straight (or some combination thereof) and I’ve loved it but now I’m thinking I need to return to straight white male authors to study the psychology of the rich white men who hold power over all of us.”
There are people I respect on that server but I had no idea they'd be the kind of people invested in "we're too fancy to be seen with someone who only writes a beer blog" country-club classism.
— Heidi N. Moore (@moorehn) November 20, 2022
Columnist Heidi Moore slammed Mastodon for the way server owners are able to “gatekeep”.
Moore was reacting to an interview in which Planet Money co-founder Adam Davidson discussed his Mastodon community designed for reporters – and how the owners decide who is a journalist and can join a server.
“Among the many irritating things about Mastodon is that it enables status-chasing journalists to gatekeep their peers by judging whether they have enough clout or are useful to other people’s career ladder-climbing,” Moore wrote.
In response, pollster Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight said: “Mastodon seems like a honey trap for hall-monitor personality types. Honestly if Elon gets all the hall monitors to migrate to Mastodon that might be his greatest contribution toward the betterment of humanity.”
Musk responded with a series of laughing and bullseye emojis.
In another tweet he wrote: “What could be more fun than a social network consisting entirely of hall monitors!?”
Mike Masnick, editor at TechDirt, suggested Musk’s attacks on Mastodon were out of fear.
“Elon repeatedly mocking Mastodon suggests that … he’s seeing the magnitude of the shift of key people from here to there,” he wrote.
Elon repeatedly mocking Mastodon suggests that... he's seeing the magnitude of the shift of key people from here to there.
— Mike Masnick (@mmasnick) November 20, 2022
The decision to reinstate Donald Trump’s account, which was permanently suspended following the January 2021 Capitol riot, is the latest move causing a major divide on Twitter.
Many users said they were “disgusted”, with some even vowing to leave the platform.
But Musk has repeatedly insisted that the site has been hitting new user records despite a series of controversial moves since his takeover.
After Trump’s account was restored, Musk posted, “Twitter is ALIVE.”
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2022
While his account is no longer suspended, the former president cast doubt on whether he would resume posting on Twitter.
Reacting to Musk’s Twitter poll, Mr Trump posted on his rival Truth Social platform that he would not be switching back over.
“Vote now with positivity, but don’t worry, we aren’t going anywhere. Truth Social is special!” he wrote.
Musk formally reinstated Mr Trump after conducting a poll that received more than 15 million votes, with 52 per cent in favour.
“The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated,” Musk wrote. “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” meaning the voice of the people is the voice of God.
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