Kanye West’s Twitter account has been restored by X, formerly known as Twitter. The business informed the Wall Street Journal on Saturday that West won’t be able to monetize his account and that no advertisements will show up next to his posts.
For breaking the platform’s guidelines against encouraging violence, the musician’s account was suspended in December. The ban came when West, who has legally changed his name to Ye, made a number of anti-Semitic remarks, including a warning to “Go death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.” Those remarks precipitated the quick collapse of a number of business agreements, including collaborations with Adidas and the high-end clothing brand Balenciaga.
West tweeted a modified image of the Star of David with a swastika inside the day before his suspension, though it was unclear whether message had been the tipping point.
Twitter’s moderation practices have long been a source of controversy, with Elon Musk, the company’s CEO, identifying as a “free speech absolutist.” He declared last October, following his agreement to purchase the business, that Twitter would “be very reluctant to delete things” and “be very cautious with permanent bans.”
But after West was suspended, Musk tweeted “I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence.”
Twitter’s safety team introduced a new content enforcement strategy in April called “Freedom of Speech, Not Reach,” which emphasized “restricting the reach of Tweets that violate our policies by making the content less discoverable.”
The team is required to “proactively prevent ads from appearing adjacent to content” that has been flagged as violative as part of this strategy.
According to a safety team update from earlier this month, these flagged tweets “receive 81% less reach or impressions” than unrestricted ones, and “more than 99.99% of Tweet impressions are from… content that does not violate our rules.”
Twitter’s Violent Speech Policy prohibits inciting and glorifying violence, wishing harm on other people, and threatening others. But it makes some exceptions, including for “figures of speech, satire, or artistic expression when the context is expressing a viewpoint rather than instigating actionable violence or harm.”
“We make sure to evaluate and understand the context behind the conversation before taking action,” the policy states, adding that if a user believes their account was wrongfully suspended, they can submit an appeal.
It’s unclear whether West submitted an appeal or if another factor led to the restoration of his account. The musician has not yet published anything on the site.
