Kanye West's Twitter Account Only Lasted One Month — What Happened?
© AP Photo / Ashley Landis
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Hip-hop star Ye (formally Kanye West) only had his Twitter suspension lifted in late October before being banned again as early as October. He posted a claim of malpractice against a Jewish doctor who treated him for mental illness and called out the number of Jewish executives in the entertainment and media industries.
Rapper Ye has been banned from Twitter for the second time in weeks after voicing his admiration for Adolf Hitler.
Questions are now being asked about how the artist previously known as Kanye West was allowed back on the social media site, only to be banished just over a month later.
Social media was buzzing on Thursday night after West made a series of incendiary comments during his appearance on the InfoWars webcast with outspoken host Alex Jones and fellow guest Nick Fuentes.
Jones and Fuentes, often described as 'alt-right' conspiracy theorists, are also banned from Twitter.
West's account was suspended in early October over remarks widely condemned as anti-Semitic. But the star was reinstated later the same month — just before the takeover and major shake-up by South African-born tech tycoon Elon Musk — although Ye took a two-week "break" from the platform from November 4 to 20.
Yeezus Cripes!
Dressed in a heavy jacket and a Balenciaga zip-up full-head mask, the multi-platinum star confusingly claimed that Nazi Fuhrer Adolf Hitler "invented highways" — a possible reference to the German Autobahn motorways built in the 1930s — and "the very microphone I use as a musician."
"Every human being has value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler," West insisted.
Alex Jones: "You're not Hitler. You're not a Nazi."
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) December 1, 2022
Ye: "Well, I see good things about Hitler, also. Every human being has value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler." pic.twitter.com/xZtjq18dm6
At one point the musician appeared to question the veracity of the Nazi genocide, after Jones challenged his repeated "I like Hitler" statement.
"The Holocaust is not what happened, let's look at the facts of that," West said "And Hitler has a lot of redeeming qualities."
Kanye 'Ye' West: “I like Hitler. ... I’m not trying to be shocking, I like Hitler. The Holocaust is not what happened, let’s look at the facts of that and Hitler has a lot of redeeming qualities.” pic.twitter.com/UwCu2ZJfid
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) December 1, 2022
West then praised Hitler's "cool" fashion sense and taste in architecture before claiming: "He didn't kill six million Jews, that's just, like factually incorrect."
In the most surreal segment of the show, the rapper took a dig at the Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and launched a visual pun on the name of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu using a child's fishing net and a bottle of chocolate-flavored Yoo-hoo drink.
"I'm in the Twilight Zone right now," Jones commented in response.
. @kanyewest impersonates @netanyahu pic.twitter.com/IH6NI0okSv
— Tayler Hansen (@TaylerUSA) December 1, 2022
Claiming that he had only heard the veteran Israeli leader's "funny name" a fortnight earlier, West proceeded to have a ventriloquist-like conversation with the net, which he voiced in a ridiculous falsetto. "He's like a super-killer, I could die for saying this," said Ye.
2 December 2022, 08:04 GMT
Back in the Sin Bin
Tesla Motors founder Musk personally announced West's account's suspension for "incitement to violence."
"I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended," Musk tweeted late Thursday night.
"Just clarifying that his account is being suspended for incitement to violence, not an unflattering pic of me being hosed by Ari," Musk posted later in response to one of West's final tweets. "Frankly, I found those pics to be helpful motivation to lose weight!"
West doubled down yet again by tweeting an image of a computer graphic design consisting of a swastika in a Jewish star of David, with the caption "Ye 24" — an apparent reference to his plans to run for US president as an independent again in 2024 against Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
A tweeted screenshot of a tweet by Kanye West before his latest Twitter ban, with a comment urging the site's owner Elon Musk to take action
It was just a week earlier that Musk pledged an "amnesty" to users whose accounts were suspended for politically-incorrect tweets — as long as they had not broken the law or engaged in spamming.
New Twitter owner Elon Musk pledges an "amnesty" for suspended accounts after millions of users voted in favour in his online straw poll
Fashion Fascist?
Some diligent netizens pointed out that West had tweeted in support of haute couture house Balenciaga in recent days, which has been widely condemned for an advertising campaign that sexualized child models while making light of child pornography laws.
Journalist Ian Miles Cheong questions Kanye West's defence of fashion house Balenciaga following the rapper's praise of Nazi Fuhrer Adolf Hitler
The singer and his ex-wife Kim Kardashian had a lucrative business relationship with the brand. But Balenciaga would not be the first designer to be tainted by links to fascism in fashion.
Germany's Hugo Boss infamously made uniforms for Nazi paramilitary formations the Stormtroopers (SA) and the SS — which ran the death camps where millions of Jews, communists and others were murdered — and later the Wehrmacht.
French luxury luggage and handbag house Louis Vuitton supported the collaborationist Vichy regime in France during the Second World War and profited from business dealings with occupier Nazi Germany.
Even the legendary Coco Chanel served as a Nazi intelligence agent after she became the lover of Baron Hans Günther von Dincklage, an officer in the German Abwehr military counter-intelligence service, just after the Wehrmacht occupied Paris in 1940.
26 November 2022, 04:04 GMT
