LONDON – Celebrities, politicians and other high-profile Britons have vowed to join a 48-hour Twitter “strike” to protest what they say is an inappropriate response to a rapper’s anti-Semitic tweets.
Wiley, who is considered a key figure on the London grime music scene, faces a police investigation after a series of anti-Semitic comments appeared on his social media accounts last week.
The 41-year-old rapper, whose real name is Richard Cowie, has nearly half a million followers on his currently suspended Twitter account.
Some of his statements were removed by the social media giant for violating his “hate behavior policy.” But others remain, drawing criticism from other users of the platform.
As a result, singer Jessie Ware, Doctor Who star Tracy-Ann Oberman, and a host of other soap stars, actors, academics, and politicians have vowed to boycott Twitter for 48 hours, starting Monday morning.
They are being supported by British political campaign group Labor Against Anti-Semitism, which accused Twitter of “repeated failure to tackle anti-Semitism on the platform” in a statement.
“The message must be clear, that Twitter must review its internal processes immediately, begin blocking anti-Semitic accounts and radically improve its protection against racism for its users,” said Denny Taylor, a spokesman for the group.
Wiley’s anti-Semitic messages are abominable.
They shouldn’t have been able to stay on Twitter and Instagram for that long and I’ve asked them for a full explanation.
Social media companies must act much faster to remove that heinous hatred from their platforms.
– Priti Patel (@pritipatel) July 26, 2020
British Home Secretary Priti Patel echoed this sentiment and said Sunday that “social media companies must act much faster to remove that appalling hatred from their platforms.”
The protest against Twitter has been promoted using the hashtag #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate.
Addressing Twitter and its CEO Jack Dorsey, Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, tweeted on Saturday: “You refuse to act against Jewish hatred. You allow people like @ WileyCEO to spread their poison. “
Luciana Berger, who left the British Labor party last year over concerns about anti-Semitism in the party, has also said she will join the strike.
“Twitter’s inaction in recent days has been disgraceful. It’s enough. If you think so, join us on Monday,” he tweeted Saturday.
The campaign was launched after Wiley, nicknamed the “godfather of filth,” published a series of tweets claiming that Jews systematically exploited black artists in the music industry. In a now-deleted tweet, the rapper compared the Jews to the Ku Klax Klan.
Several videos also appeared on his Instagram account on Friday and Saturday with statements of a similar nature.
The Anti-Semitism Campaign condemned the tweets as “conspiracy theories” and “anti-Semitic poison.”
The London Metropolitan Police said in a statement Saturday that they were investigating the rapper’s posts, that he had a number one British single in 2012 and several other top 10 hits. He also received an honor from the UK government for his contribution to music in 2018.
Less than 24 hours after his posts, John Woolf of A-List Management said in a statement Saturday that he would no longer represent the artist and that he had “cut all ties to him.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
