Kanye West was suspended from Twitter and accused of “inciting violence” over offensive tweets, just two months after his previous suspension.
The US rapper, now known as Ye, sent out a series of erratic tweets, one of which appeared to depict a symbol combining a swastika and a Jewish star.
One user asked Twitter’s new CEO, Elon Musk, to “fix Kanye.”
West had “violated our rule against incitement to violence”, Musk tweeted.
“Account will be suspended,” he added.
Also on Thursday, while wearing a mask and speaking with American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, West praised the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and ranting about sin, pornography, and the devil.
With his anti-Semitic and racist comments, West has long been a source of controversy both online and off.
After publishing anti-Semitic remarks in October, West had his Twitter and Instagram accounts initially locked. Both websites took down West’s posts after discovering they violated their hate speech policies and claimed rapper Diddy was under Jewish control.
These tweets were a response to criticism he received for wearing a “White Lives Matter” t-shirt during his show during Paris Fashion Week.
His phrase was labeled “hate speech” by the Anti-Defamation League and was used by white nationalists in 2015 in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.
In March of this year, West received a 24-hour Instagram ban for making a racial slur in reference to comedian Trevor Noah.
Will.i.am, a singer, spearheaded a backlash against West in 2018 after he suggested that the centuries-long enslavement of African Americans may have been a “choice”; West later attempted to clarify his comments.
His most recent Twitter suspension comes just hours after the right-wing social media site Parler, which bills itself as a “free speech” alternative to popular platforms, announced that West was no longer allowed to purchase the business.
In a statement, Parlement Technologies said: “The company has mutually agreed with Ye to terminate the intent of sale.”
The company, which manages the much smaller platform that is well-liked by conservatives and the extreme right, claimed that the choice was made in the middle of November.
“Parler will continue to pursue future opportunities for growth and the evolution of the platform for our vibrant community,” the firm said in its statement.
When Musk assumed control of Twitter in October, he set out right away to make a number of radical changes within the social media behemoth, including lifting the restrictions on certain accounts.
He has emphasized that he had no involvement in getting West back on Twitter, claiming that the account had already been reinstated when he first bought the social media site.
West has openly discussed his struggles with his mental health since receiving a bipolar disorder diagnosis many years ago.
Medical professionals and those who have the same illness as West have cautioned that mental health issues and anti-Semitism do not necessarily go hand in hand.
