Board of Deputies President Marie van der Zyl has reacted to the storm of antisemitic abuse posted by rapper Wiley, with little or no intervention from the social media platforms, despite pleas to delete his posts.
Marie said: “We in the Jewish community were appalled to see Wiley’s anti-Jewish racist rant carry on for hour after hour with absolutely no intervention from Twitter or Instagram at all. Twitter and Instagram, the latter of which is owned by Facebook, have since acted too little and too late. Black Jews, in particular, have been left feeling especially vulnerable. Far too often, we see misogyny, homophobia and racism against different groups going unchecked on these platforms. This has to change. We are calling for all social media platforms to adopt the international definition of antisemitism; social media companies to have moderators in every country who can understand and interpret offensive language within a local context; a new regulator who can impose punitive fines when social media companies fail to crack down on hate. We hope that the police will prosecute Wiley’s racial hatred and it should go without saying that Wiley should be banned from all social media platforms and his offensive tweets deleted. Finally, as a racist, he should have his MBE revoked. There must be #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate”