48 hour ‘walkout’ of Twitter to take place over failure to take action over anti-Semitism
An image being used to promote the #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate walkout on Twitter. Photograph: Twitter. - Credit: Archant
A group of high-profile Twitter users have proposed a 48 hour 'walkout' from Twitter after the platform refused to take proportionate action against anti-Semitism.
It follows anti-Semtic tweets from grime star Wiley on Friday and Saturday which merely resulted in a suspension, with the musician able to return to posting hours later.
Police are now investigating a series of comments made on the musician's social media account.
Stars including singer Jessie Ware, actress Tracy-Ann Oberman, politician Luciana Berger, as well as a host of other celebrities will be boycotting the website, and invite other users to follow suit.
Other prominent figures to announce their support included Lord Sugar, consumer champion Martin Lewis, TV presenter Rachel Riley and comedian Shappi Khorsandi.
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They are being supported by the British political campaign group Labour Against Anti-Semitism.
Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy tweeted her support, as did fellow Labour MP Stella Creasy and Conservative MP Brendan Clarke-Smith, who said: 'Anti-Semitism has no place in society and there should be zero tolerance of it.'
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The New European will also join the boycott, as a newspaper that has taken a firm line against anti-Semitism.
A spokesman for the group said: 'The action we are announcing today is to show that the Jewish community and its allies have had enough of platforms like Twitter acting as loudspeakers for anti-Semitism, amplifying the hatred of Jews to millions of other social media users.
'As soon as Wiley began posting his anti-Semitic 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.'
The walkout is using the hashtag #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate.
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