Twitter, Instagram suspend Kanye West over antisemitic posts

Kanye West is once again embroiled in controversy

Kanye West once suggested slavery was a choice. He called the COVID-19 vaccine “the mark of the beast.” Earlier this month, he was criticised for wearing a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt to his collection at Paris Fashion Week.

Now the rapper who is legally known as Ye is again embroiled in controversy — locked out of Twitter and Instagram over posts that the social networks said Sunday violated their policies. In one antisemitic post on Twitter, Ye said he would soon go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE,” according to internet archive records, making an apparent reference to the U.S. defense readiness condition scale known as DEFCON.

“You guys have toyed with me and tried to blackball anyone whoever opposes your agenda,” he said in the same tweet posted late Saturday, which was removed by Twitter.

The comment drew a sharp rebuke from the Anti-Defamation League, which called the tweet “deeply troubling, dangerous, and antisemitic, period.”

“There is no excuse for his propagating of white supremacist slogans and classic antisemitism about Jewish power, especially with the platform he has,” a statement said.

Representatives for Ye did not return requests for comment.

Ye has alienated even ardent fans in recent years, teasing and long tinkering with albums that haven’t been met with the critical or commercial success of his earlier recordings. Those close to him, like ex-wife Kim Kardashian and her family, have ceased publicly defending him after the couple’s bitter divorce and his unsettling posts about her recent relationship with comedian Pete Davidson.