Twitter 48-hour ‘walkout’ planned in response to social media giant's handling of Wiley's anti-Semitism tweets

Ministers and campaigners are planning a 48-hour Twitter "walkout" in response to a series of anti-Semitic posts shared by artist Wiley on the social media platform.

Grime rapper Wiley was dropped by his management and handed a seven-day Twitter ban for violating its "hateful conduct policy" after sharing a string of tweets that are now being investigated by the police.

Politicians and musicians condemned the rapper on Saturday, with Grime producer DJ Spoony saying on Saturday that the comments were “at best inflammatory and at worst criminal in some aspects”.

Twitter also faced criticism for allowing some of the tweets to remain visible for more than 12 hours after they were first posted.

A number of tweets made by Wiley’s account, which has almost 500,000 followers, have now been removed.

According to campaign group Labour Against Antisemitism (LAAS) a number of “high profile Twitter users” will stop using the site for 48 hours from 9am on Monday.

The protest is said to have been triggered by the social media site’s “inadequate response” to Wiley’s actions.

LAAS said supporters of the “grass-roots” and “organic” initiative that it is helping to promote include Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge, Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat, historian Simon Schama, TV presenter Rachel Riley, singer Bevereley Knight, actor David Schneider and the Campaign Against Antisemitism.

The protest action will be promoted beforehand using the #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate hashtag.

Targeting Twitter and its boss Jack Dorsey, Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle newspaper, tweeted on Saturday: “You refuse to act against Jew hate.”

He added: “You choose to allow it on here. So we say: #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate.”

A spokesperson, on behalf of the group backing the walkout plans, said 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”.

The spokesperson added: “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.”

Twitter has previously been accused of “allowing racism to run rampant” on its site. Last week, it promoted a viral hashtag which contained numerous anti-Semitic tweets.

Several posts featuring anti-Jewish racism and Holocaust denial were presented to users looking at the hashtag #JewishPrivilege, which trended in the UK earlier in July.

In a statement on the Wiley posts, Twitter said: “Abuse and harassment have no place on our service and we have policies in place – that apply to everyone, everywhere – that address abuse and harassment, violent threats, and hateful conduct.

“If we identify accounts that violate any of these rules, we’ll take enforcement action.”

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