It shouldn’t need to be said, but in a modern, confident and progressive country like Britain, it should not be possible for a bigot to spout hatred to hundreds of thousands of social media followers unchecked for hours on end. And yet last weekend that is exactly what happened.
Like countless people, I was horrified by the foul stream of antisemitic abuse that Grime artist Wiley posted on his Twitter and Instagram accounts on Saturday. It’s appalling to think that any Jewish person would feel the need to disengage online because they feel unsafe, as countless people did with a 48-hour boycott this week. That’s not the free, fair and open internet dreamed of by Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
And it was particularly shocking that some of Wiley’s abhorrent posts remained online for nearly 12 hours. I can only imagine what a Jewish teenager felt as Wiley’s racist rant was shared, “liked” and retweeted. With every retweet, it wasn’t just him attacking them; it was some parts of the wider online community effectively saying his bile was ok.
Twitter has since written to me, apologising for how long it took them to act in this case. But this incident is yet more evidence that social media self-regulation isn’t working. The government must and will step in.
