Edward Berthelot
The morning after billionaire edgelord Elon Musk formally took over Twitter, quite a few media retailers and cable information networks breathlessly reported that rap celebrity Kanye West’s Twitter account had been “reactivated” and made publicly “seen” once more following a “suspension” over his antisemitic tweets.
The one downside with that is that West, who now goes by the identify Ye, was by no means truly suspended by Twitter, and his account was by no means taken down.
Following Musk’s acquisition of the social-media large on Thursday night, which featured him firing a number of executives, it was reported that the Tesla founder has contemplated lifting all lifetime bans on Twitter accounts. This is able to conceivably lead to former President Donald Trump—together with a number of right-wing provocateurs who’d been kicked off the platform—returning to Twitter.
Friday morning, in the meantime, noticed a plethora of experiences claiming West’s Twitter suspension had been lifted and was now energetic on the platform, suggesting that Musk intervened and restored his account.
“The Twitter account of Ye, previously referred to as Kanye West, was publicly seen Friday morning—lower than a day after Elon Musk accomplished his takeover of the corporate,” Axios reported, including: “Axios couldn't independently confirm that Twitter granted Ye entry to his account, and it’s not clear if he has posting privileges.” (The Axios piece quietly modified its headline on Friday afternoon to “Ye’s Twitter account carefully watched after Elon Musk takeover”.)
A Reuters article acknowledged that West was “again on Twitter after suspension as Musk takes management of platform,” stating that the previous billionaire had been “suspended for posting anti-Semitic remarks.”
Whereas different retailers comparable to Bloomberg and The Unbiased additionally reported that West was “not suspended” and his “account was reactivated after Elon Musk’s takeover,” HuffPost finally took down an article that claimed he was “reactivated” and changed it with an editor’s observe: “A HuffPost article beforehand at an related hyperlink is not accessible on the positioning. It has been eliminated for an editorial requirements situation.”
The Unbiased additionally quickly modified up its unique article, altering the headline to learn, “Twitter received’t touch upon way forward for Kanye West’s account after Elon Musk’s takeover,” and including a brand new lead paragraph: “Twitter has not commented on the standing of Kanye West‘s account amid unverified experiences that he’d regained entry after weeks of being locked out for posting antisemitic messages earlier this month.”
In the meantime, Fox Information and its sister channel Fox Enterprise Community ran segments on Friday repeating this declare, with anchor Harris Faulkner even questioning if West’s tweet threatening to go “dying con 3” on Jewish folks was protected speech.
The one situation right here is that West’s account was merely restricted for posting the antisemitic tweet earlier this month. That tweet, which got here after Ye was equally restricted on the time from Instagram for hate speech towards Jewish folks, was hidden by the social media platform for violating Twitter’s guidelines, and West was locked out of his account.
Musk, actually, even stated that he spoke with West shortly after he despatched the tweet and “expressed” his issues, which he claimed Ye “took to coronary heart.”
In keeping with Twitter’s coverage, till West deleted the violating tweet he can solely entry his account in read-only mode and can't publicly share any posts. On the similar time, nonetheless, the account will stay seen, as will the entire tweets that didn't violate the platform’s insurance policies.
In keeping with the Web Archive’s Wayback Machine, West’s Twitter account had been publicly seen as of two days in the past. Moreover, since West was locked out of his account on Oct. 8, @kanyewest has frequently been up on Twitter and doesn't seem to have been taken down in any manner. A Twitter spokesperson didn't instantly reply to a request for remark.
Similarities abound between this present scenario and the Twitter chest-thumping right-wing pundits Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk engaged in earlier this 12 months.
Shortly after it was introduced that Musk would purchase Twitter in April, the 2 quietly deleted anti-trans tweets that resulted in each of them being locked out of their accounts, regardless of claiming they’d by no means again all the way down to Twitter. As an alternative, moderately than admit they removed the offending posts, they each tried to recommend that Musk was liable for their accounts being unlocked.