PRITI Patel has slammed “abhorrent” anti-Semitic posts by grime artist Wiley – and blasted Twitter and Instagram for failing to take them down quickly enough.
The furious Home Secretary demanded answers from the social media giants over why it took so long to remove the sick remarks.
She fumed: “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.”
Rapper Wiley was banned from Twitter for 12 hours and dropped by his manager after the anti-Semitic rant.
The grime artist made a string of shocking comments on Twitter branding Jewish people “too touchy,” and saying Israel “is not yours.”
The Metropolitan Police have now said they had received a number of reports about the tweets and are investigating.
Ms Patel’s reprimand came as criticism of the two firms over their handling of the affair grew.
They are now being urged to permanently ban the controversial musician after the Met revealed it is probing his racist rant.
Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said it was “absolutely appalling” Twitter had “refused to take on the antisemitic bile”.
Fellow Labour frontbencher Jo Stevens added: “Why haven’t Twitter and Instagram removed Wiley’s accounts despite them being full of vile antisemitic content?
“Thousands of young people will be seeing these awful posts. Yet another example of the tech companies failing to live up to their repeated promises on hate speech.”
The Campaign Against Antisemitism asked both companies to close his accounts to “prevent further outpouring of anti-Jewish venom”.
There are also calls for the 41-year-old rapper to be stripped of his MBE.
Wiley, known as the “godfather of grime”, posted a series of antisemitic messages including ones comparing the Jewish community to the Ku Klux Klan.
In one he said: “I don’t care about Hitler, I care about black people.”
He shared the poisonous posts on his Twitter and Instagram accounts, which together have more than 940,000 followers.
Twitter eventually removed some of the tweets, saying they broke its rules, and handed him a 12-hour ban on Friday night.
Instagram said it had also deleted some of the content.
Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.hellofaread.com/politics/brits-will-inevitably-have-to-fork-out-more-tax-to-pay-for-coronavirus-tony-blair-says/
