Chief Rabbi joins Twitter 'walkout' over Wiley's anti-Semitic posts: 'This cannot be allowed to stand'

"Your inaction amounts to complicity"
Imogen Braddick27 July 2020

The UK's Chief Rabbi has accused Facebook and Twitter of lacking "responsible leadership" in their response to anti-Semitic posts by rapper Wiley.

The two platforms have been criticised for their response to the grime artist's posts, with Twitter accused of "ignoring anti-Semitism" as his tweets were still visible 12 hours after they were first posted.

Ephraim Mirvis said he would join politicians, celebrities and campaigners in a 48-hour boycott of the social media sites from Monday.

In letters sent to Twitter boss Jack Dorsey and Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, the Jewish leader said: "This cannot be allowed to stand. Your inaction amounts to complicity."

Police are now investigating a series of comments made on the musician’s Instagram and Twitter accounts on Friday which led to him being banned from both for seven days.

The musician’s manager John Woolf, who is Jewish, said A-List Management had "cut all ties" with the artist following a barrage of offensive posts.

In a post on Instagram, Wiley described his former manager as a "fool", saying he had cut ties with A-List Management, not the other way round.

Using the hashtag #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate, a number of high-profile Twitter users have announced their support for a planned boycott of the site in protest over the company’s handling of the incident.

Among those confirming they would take part was shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy, who tweeted her support alongside the message “#Solidarity”.

Fellow Labour MP Stella Creasy and Conservative MP Brendan Clarke-Smith said: "Anti-Semitism has no place in society and there should be zero tolerance of it."

The official Labour Party account tweeted that it supports those taking part but as the official opposition with the duty of holding the Government to account it “cannot afford to be absent from social media platforms”.

Other prominent figures to announce their support included Lord Sugar, consumer champion Martin Lewis, TV presenter Rachel Riley and comedian Shappi Khorsandi.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said on Sunday that platforms need to act faster to remove "such appalling hatred" from their sites.

"The anti-Semitic posts from Wiley are abhorrent,” she said in a tweet. "They should not have been able to remain on Twitter and Instagram for so long and I have asked them for a full explanation.

"Social media companies must act much faster to remove such appalling hatred from their platforms."

Twitter and Facebook have both previously been accused of not doing enough to stop the spread of hate speech and harmful content on their platforms.

New regulations to better hold online companies to account is currently being prepared by the Government.

Twitter has previously said "abuse and harassment" have "no place" on its service and that it takes enforcement action over accounts which violate its rules addressing hateful conduct.

Facebook says it "removes hate speech, harassment, threats of violence and other content that has the potential to silence others or cause harm".

The social media platform, which owns Instagram, has reportedly issued the rapper with a seven-day block on his account.

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