British interior minister Priti Patel said on Sunday she had asked Twitter and Instagram for a full explanation of why anti-Semitic comments made by rap artist Wiley remained on the social media platforms for so long.
Wiley is facing a police investigation after comments appeared on his social media accounts on Friday asserting that Jews systematically exploited Black artists in the music industry.
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“The anti-Semitic posts from Wiley are abhorrent,” Patel said on Twitter.
“They should not have been able to remain on Twitter and Instagram for so long and I have asked them for a full explanation. Social media companies must act much faster to remove such appalling hatred from their platforms.”
A company spokesperson for Facebook, which owns Instagram, said: “There is no place for hate speech on Instagram. We have deleted content that violates our policies from this account and have blocked access to it for seven days.”
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Twitter has deleted some anti-Semitic statements on Wiley’s Twitter account. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Wiley, 41, whose real name is Richard Cowie, released a number one single in Britain in 2012 and had several other top 10 hits as a leading figure in grime music, a British genre of rap. He received a UK government honour for his contribution to music in 2018.
John Woolf, of A-List Management, has said he would no longer represent the artist.
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