Influential British grime artist Wiley found himself receiving a suspension from Twitter after sending out a number of anti-semetic tweets targeted at Jewish neighbourhood in London, but would quickly move to Facebook after with another message stating “soon as I get back on Twitter it’s gonna be peak” – Facebook were also quick to ban the artist but as it took nearly a week for Twitter to respond, it has many upset with the platform and suggesting it will take much more than a boycott to fix the ongoing issues with delayed responses to these types of messages.
A spokesman for Twitter put on the statement “Let us be clear: hateful conduct has absolutely no place on our service and we strongly condemn antisemitism. We are sorry we did not move faster and are continuing to assess the situation internally” after coming under fire for taking six days to ban the grime artist, but this had also led to a group of high profile Twitter asking for the site to be boycott for 48 hours early in the week, whilst also suggesting that suspension wasn’t enough action as many of the tweets made remained on the site for a number of hours before being removed much later and has also been yet another instance added to the list of slow responses and mishandled events in recent months from the platform.
(Image from ft.com)
Recent comments from the Community Security Trust (who work to protect the Jewish community) are now suggesting however that the boycott actions taken simply aren’t enough now – recent published data has suggested that there has been a record number of antisemitic comments online in recent months and as the community are set to publish their report covering January to June it’s expected that this will continue to ring true – as has been seen with other recent events namely around the ongoing pandemic and the action taken against the misinformation that has been spread it has been suggested that a firmer stance needs to be taken on this behaviour and simply handing out haphazard suspensions is simply not enough to prevent behaviour, if further consequences aren’t put in place then more than just a boycott will be needed as site users need to actively speak out against allowing this behaviour.
Similar changes have been seen in other platforms lately too such as certain gaming platforms as Riot Games recently ended a partnership with a sponsor for similar feedback around different beliefs and criticisms but this could be an area that sees changes much quicker than others as the industry is usually very quick to react to adjustments as has most recently been seen with online gambling as changes in initiatives such as Gamstop restricted access for many players until an adjustment was made for a growing number of Gambling Sites Not on Gamstop to become available, such as at Best Casinos – whatever the platform is however there is growing pressure to ensure action is taken much quicker, and that heavier punishments are handed out for the behaviour.
