High profile Twitters users, including leading figures in the Jewish community, have announced a 48-hour ‘walkout’ of the social media platform beginning Monday 27 July at 9.00am.
The action follows the inadequate response by Twitter to grime star Wiley’s antisemitic tirade, which started on Friday and by Saturday morning was still ongoing.
Celebrities, politicians and community activists have agreed not to use the Twitter platform as a protest against the failure of Twitter to enforce its own rules and take down Wiley’s account after the grime star broadcast a series of antisemitic tweets to his over 500,000 followers.
Wiley’s is just one of a recent number of high profile and influential Twitter accounts that has incited racial hatred against Jews, receiving an insufficient response from the platform provider. This incident reflects the need for clear legislation, such as the Online Harm Reduction Bill.
A spokesperson said:
“The ‘walkout’ we are announcing today is to show that the Jewish community and its allies have had enough of platforms like Twitter acting as loudspeakers for antisemitism, amplifying the hatred of Jews to millions of other social media users.
As soon as Wiley began posting his antisemitic tweets on Friday Twitter was flooded with requests to have his account taken down. In response Twitter deleted a couple of his tweets and gave the grime star a brief suspension. It was a completely inadequate response.
Unless there is an immediate change in how Twitter operates then there will be further action, including legal action, against the organisation.”
Supporters confirmed include Ian Austin, Nick Cohen, Jeremy Drysdale, Beverley Knight, Margaret Hodge MP, Shappi Khorsandi, Labour Against Antisemitism, Fiyaz Mughal, Muslims Against Antisemitism, Maajid Nawaz, Tracy Ann Oberman, Andi Oliver, Arlene Phillips, Trevor Phillips, Rachel Riley, Rob Rinder, Sathnam Sanghera, Simon Schama, David Schneider, Tom Tugendhat MP, and Campaign Against Antisemitism with more expected to join the campaign as awareness is raised.
https://twitter.com/MaajidNawaz/status/1287078782046818304
I will personally be taking part in the walkout and I encourage you all to do the same.
