8 ms·

Kanye West Is Suspended from Twitter After Posting a Swastika

38 points by mhb 4y ago

SanjayMehta 4y ago
The official story from Musk is "threats of violence." And West posted the Raelian symbol, not a swastika.
scarface74 4y ago
Why? I’m definitely not pro Nazi and I am a minority. But why is posting hate speech a bridge too far for a “free speech” hard liner as Musk pretends to be?
- pubby 4y ago
  Musk wants advertiser money back.
- nailer 4y ago
  The swastika is associated with racial violence and violence is always something Musk has said he will not allow.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    And claiming that an election was stolen that actually caused some idiots to storm a government building and putting the VP of the United States in danger is not associated with violence?
    - nailer 4y ago
      No, posting a flag of mass murderers is different from encouraging people to protest. I don’t care about the left/right politics, but since you may: bring consistent here also allows BLM to keep posting on Twitter despite people being shot by extremists.
  - quantified 4y ago
    Interesting. Look up the Boer flag, of Musk's South Africa.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  I believe Kanye posted some private comms between them on Parler or Truth Social. I've not read them but it might include some of his reasoning.
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    Private comms between Musk and Kanye was Musk quoting the Bible (?) as giving him the authority to decide whether Kanye's Swastikarofdavid is "love" or not. No joke.
- ethanbond 4y ago
  Because Elon doesn't actually have an ounce of moral intelligence. Like virtually every other thing that has happened with this whole takeover, he appears not to have really thought about the problem for more than 30 seconds. This was evident even before a "tricky" case came up. His opening salvo was "free speech reigns," then immediately "well, law of the land matters," then "wait I guess I didn't think about how to handle variations in laws..."
  - raspberry1337 4y ago
    It's humoring how many geniuses there are on the internet with the full authority to denounce the intelligence of the worlds currently richest man.
    - ethanbond 4y ago
      Yep, there's never before been a rich man with a loose grasp on morality, nor a poor man with a strong one. History shows that this just doesn't happen.
      - raspberry1337 4y ago
        None said anything about morality. You seem very intelligent.
    - the_only_law 4y ago
      It’s also humoring just how many stans there are on HN.
      - raspberry1337 4y ago
        Who would have thought that the engineer who initiatived and led both Tesla and SpaceX would have a lot of fans on an engineering forum
    - lukas099 4y ago
      This is ridiculous. We should only air our opinions about people poorer than us?
- rsynnott 4y ago
  I assume it's finally beginning to dawn on Elon that maybe everyone on twitter won't pay $8 to see a sea of swastikas, and he will need those advertisers after all.
mindslight 4y ago
Remember when ragequit forum drama was limited to the blast radius of the individual forum, and wasn't multiple weeks of coverage in the New York Times?
paxys 4y ago
So much for "free speech absolutism" I guess. Does the first amendment have an exception for swastikas that I don't know about? Musk is quickly learning that he cannot pick fights with Apple and corporate advertisers while being tens of billions of dollars in debt.
- mindslight 4y ago
  By taking on obscene amounts of debt for what amounts to a personal project, Elon Musk has made himself the poorest man in the world.
  - raspberry1337 4y ago
    The debt is put on Twitter, just like when you buy a house you can put the house itself as insurance for the debt. Elon Musk is still the richest man in the world, your own input to this forum however remains very poor.
    - mindslight 4y ago
      And just like buying a house - despite the asset being collateral for the loan and generally having net positive equity, the individual is personally incentivized to keep making the interest payments "or else". Or else you lose the house and still need a place to live, or else Twitter gets foreclosed upon and the ego driven project turns into a failure. I think it's a striking demonstration of the perils of living above your means. If we take the definition of "poor" as the inability to pay for one's monthly upkeep, it's possible for Musk to simultaneously be the richest and the poorest person in the world. And sure, he could always increase his investment by using more personal funds to make the interest payments, taking the longer term view (whether business or idealistic based). But the fact is that he hasn't, and has been framing this situation exactly as Twitter needing to immediately service that debt.
- nailer 4y ago
  No. Banning someone because they posted the symbol of a group that murdered millions of people based on their race is very different from banning them because they posted “men are not women”.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
There was an article here the other day about how it's not a swastika, it's a hooked cross. The people who actually use swastikas would like to be disassociated from the murderous megalomaniac who appropriated their symbol and used it is his white supremacist propaganda.
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
  It's not even that. It's a symbol from a UFO cult https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%ABlism#Religious_symbol https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%ABlism#Religious_symbo...
  - krapp 4y ago
    Which makes it really weird in context, because the Raelians are using it in its original non-violent sense, but Kanye West is explicitly pushing anti-semitic messaging. Which leads me to assume Kanye either thought he was being clever or just doesn't understand the intended context of the symbol he posted.
    - RavingGoat 4y ago
      Pepe the Frog was never meant to be a hate symbol but here we are.
  - someNameIG 4y ago
    The symbol is the first image on google when you search for swastika Star of David (or it was, now Ye images are showing up lol), and given the context of his por-hitler and pro-nazi rant, I think it's far more likely than not Ye had no idea the UFO connection.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
root_axis 4y ago
> Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter. You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet Very funny to see people twist themselves into a pretzel to explain why this ban is justified despite all of Elon's phony preening about "free speech" over the past few months. Elon paid good money to live out his twitter admin power fantasy and it's as simple as that. Free speech is a brand not a real principle that Elon cares about. The most ironic part is that Swastikas are still allowed on twitter, but personal attacks against Musk are a big no-no.
- 0x4d464d48 4y ago
  Turns out that strategy doesn't work so well when it's from a celebrity's account.

38 points by mhb 4y ago

The official story from Musk is "threats of violence." And West posted the Raelian symbol, not a swastika.

Why? I’m definitely not pro Nazi and I am a minority. But why is posting hate speech a bridge too far for a “free speech” hard liner as Musk pretends to be?

pubby 4y ago
Musk wants advertiser money back.
nailer 4y ago
The swastika is associated with racial violence and violence is always something Musk has said he will not allow.
- scarface74 4y ago
  And claiming that an election was stolen that actually caused some idiots to storm a government building and putting the VP of the United States in danger is not associated with violence?
  - nailer 4y ago
    No, posting a flag of mass murderers is different from encouraging people to protest. I don’t care about the left/right politics, but since you may: bring consistent here also allows BLM to keep posting on Twitter despite people being shot by extremists.
- quantified 4y ago
  Interesting. Look up the Boer flag, of Musk's South Africa.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
I believe Kanye posted some private comms between them on Parler or Truth Social. I've not read them but it might include some of his reasoning.
- ethanbond 4y ago
  Private comms between Musk and Kanye was Musk quoting the Bible (?) as giving him the authority to decide whether Kanye's Swastikarofdavid is "love" or not. No joke.
ethanbond 4y ago
Because Elon doesn't actually have an ounce of moral intelligence. Like virtually every other thing that has happened with this whole takeover, he appears not to have really thought about the problem for more than 30 seconds. This was evident even before a "tricky" case came up. His opening salvo was "free speech reigns," then immediately "well, law of the land matters," then "wait I guess I didn't think about how to handle variations in laws..."
- raspberry1337 4y ago
  It's humoring how many geniuses there are on the internet with the full authority to denounce the intelligence of the worlds currently richest man.
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    Yep, there's never before been a rich man with a loose grasp on morality, nor a poor man with a strong one. History shows that this just doesn't happen.
    - raspberry1337 4y ago
      None said anything about morality. You seem very intelligent.
  - the_only_law 4y ago
    It’s also humoring just how many stans there are on HN.
    - raspberry1337 4y ago
      Who would have thought that the engineer who initiatived and led both Tesla and SpaceX would have a lot of fans on an engineering forum
  - lukas099 4y ago
    This is ridiculous. We should only air our opinions about people poorer than us?
rsynnott 4y ago
I assume it's finally beginning to dawn on Elon that maybe everyone on twitter won't pay $8 to see a sea of swastikas, and he will need those advertisers after all.

mindslight 4y ago

Remember when ragequit forum drama was limited to the blast radius of the individual forum, and wasn't multiple weeks of coverage in the New York Times?

paxys 4y ago

So much for "free speech absolutism" I guess. Does the first amendment have an exception for swastikas that I don't know about? Musk is quickly learning that he cannot pick fights with Apple and corporate advertisers while being tens of billions of dollars in debt.

mindslight 4y ago
By taking on obscene amounts of debt for what amounts to a personal project, Elon Musk has made himself the poorest man in the world.
- raspberry1337 4y ago
  The debt is put on Twitter, just like when you buy a house you can put the house itself as insurance for the debt. Elon Musk is still the richest man in the world, your own input to this forum however remains very poor.
  - mindslight 4y ago
    And just like buying a house - despite the asset being collateral for the loan and generally having net positive equity, the individual is personally incentivized to keep making the interest payments "or else". Or else you lose the house and still need a place to live, or else Twitter gets foreclosed upon and the ego driven project turns into a failure. I think it's a striking demonstration of the perils of living above your means. If we take the definition of "poor" as the inability to pay for one's monthly upkeep, it's possible for Musk to simultaneously be the richest and the poorest person in the world. And sure, he could always increase his investment by using more personal funds to make the interest payments, taking the longer term view (whether business or idealistic based). But the fact is that he hasn't, and has been framing this situation exactly as Twitter needing to immediately service that debt.
nailer 4y ago
No. Banning someone because they posted the symbol of a group that murdered millions of people based on their race is very different from banning them because they posted “men are not women”.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

There was an article here the other day about how it's not a swastika, it's a hooked cross. The people who actually use swastikas would like to be disassociated from the murderous megalomaniac who appropriated their symbol and used it is his white supremacist propaganda.

zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
It's not even that. It's a symbol from a UFO cult https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%ABlism#Religious_symbol https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%ABlism#Religious_symbo...
- krapp 4y ago
  Which makes it really weird in context, because the Raelians are using it in its original non-violent sense, but Kanye West is explicitly pushing anti-semitic messaging. Which leads me to assume Kanye either thought he was being clever or just doesn't understand the intended context of the symbol he posted.
  - RavingGoat 4y ago
    Pepe the Frog was never meant to be a hate symbol but here we are.
- someNameIG 4y ago
  The symbol is the first image on google when you search for swastika Star of David (or it was, now Ye images are showing up lol), and given the context of his por-hitler and pro-nazi rant, I think it's far more likely than not Ye had no idea the UFO connection.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

root_axis 4y ago

> Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter. You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet Very funny to see people twist themselves into a pretzel to explain why this ban is justified despite all of Elon's phony preening about "free speech" over the past few months. Elon paid good money to live out his twitter admin power fantasy and it's as simple as that. Free speech is a brand not a real principle that Elon cares about. The most ironic part is that Swastikas are still allowed on twitter, but personal attacks against Musk are a big no-no.

0x4d464d48 4y ago
Turns out that strategy doesn't work so well when it's from a celebrity's account.