Facebook suspends UK rapper Wiley after posting anti-Semitic messages

The artist Wiley prompted a Twitter walkout of British Jews after an anti-Semitic tirade posted on the platform. Image by Getty/Tabatha Fireman/Stringer

By Marcy Oster July 28, 2020

(JTA) — The influential British rapper Wiley, suspended from Twitter after posting a series of anti-Semitic messages there, moved his social media rants about Jews to Facebook, where he threatened to come to a largely Jewish populated neighborhood of London and singled out Jewish public figures who have been critical of him.

Facebook promptly suspended his account on Tuesday, saying his posts violate its policies, according to the BBC.

“Golders green yes see you soon I will come on my own,” Wiley wrote, referencing the largely Jewish-populated London neighborhood.

“Who called the police? Are you from Golders Green? I am coming to sit down with you in Golders Green …” he added, according to Britain’s Jewish News, which captured screen shots of the comments.

On Friday, Wiley had tweeted comments such as “I don’t care about Hitler, I care about black people.”

In response to Jewish comedian David Baddiel, who said in a radio interview that “there has not been anyone with such an enormous platform” who has come at the Jewish community “so blatantly before,” Wiley said “Cos everyone was scared that’s why.”

Several of the posts were deleted hours later, the Jewish News reported. The posts are scattered throughout others that attack slavery and discrimination against Blacks.

The new messages come after the rapper, whose name is Richard Kylea Cowie, posted a series of anti-Semitic messages on Twitter on Friday, leading his Jewish manager to quit. Twitter deleted several of the tweets, saying they violated the platform’s rules, and suspended Wiley.

Wiley responded on Facebook that as “soon as I get back on Twitter it’s gonna be peak.”

The Board of Deputies of British Jews president, Marie van der Zyl, called on Facebook to remove Wiley from the platform in a statement on Tuesday.

The post Facebook suspends UK rapper Wiley he after moves his messages towards Jews there appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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