All eyes on Twitter after Facebook and Instagram finally close Wiley’s accounts for good after CAA exposes panicked outreach to advertisers
It has taken Facebook several days, but it has finally made the decision to ban Wiley from Facebook and Instagram (which is owned by Facebook), soon after Campaign Against Antisemitism publicised Facebook’s private damage control outreach to advertisers.
In a statement, Facebook said: “There is no place for hate speech on Facebook and Instagram. After initially placing Wiley’s accounts in a seven-day block, we have now removed both his Facebook and Instagram accounts for repeated violations of our policies.”
It is unclear whether Wiley will be able to open new accounts in future, without any assurance or evidence that he will refrain from racist incitement.
Twitter, however, has so far failed to ban Wiley from its platform for any longer than seven days, despite the rapper’s antisemitic rant having begun on Twitter and only later moved to Instagram and Facebook.
Gideon Falter, Chief Executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “Although it took Facebook several days to reach the right decision, it has now banned Wiley from its platforms. Twitter, however, has yet to do so, despite Wiley having launched his antisemitic tirade on that platform. All eyes are now on Twitter, which evidently still values profit over decency. Twitter has disgraced itself in failing to take responsibility and act against antisemitism but it can still follow Facebook in belatedly making the right decision to ban Wiley for his unrepentant racist incitement.
“It is a lamentable state of affairs that it takes a 48-hour global boycott of social media to convince Twitter and Facebook to take the most elementary action against someone using their platforms to call for Jews to be shot. Twitter’s performance over the past few days has been beyond abysmal. Nobody makes a better case for regulation of social media than the technology companies themselves.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism and others have walked out from Twitter, Instagram and Facebook for 48 hours as part of a #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate campaign following the social media platforms’ failure to take appropriate action against racism on their websites.
Those who oppose antisemitic racism are encouraged to join the walkout and to add the #TogetherAgainstAntisemitism profile badge in solidarity.