Representatives from five Jewish and anti-hate organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center, have asked tech platforms and influencers to stop hosting interviews with Ye.
Jewish and anti-hate organizations are urging social media influencers and tech platforms to stop hosting interviews with Ye, the rapper and artist formerly known as Kanye West, as he’s continued to make antisemitic statements and criticize Jewish people in his recent public appearances.
Representatives for five Jewish and anti-hate groups including the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Jewish Committee, StopAntisemitism and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance called on influencers and tech platforms to take responsibility for their part in allowing Ye’s antisemitic statements to spread online.
“Anybody who gives him a platform, you’re basically complicit at this point,” said Liora Rez, executive director of StopAntisemitism. “The only goal of his is to spew hatred and further vilify Jews.”
The statements come after white nationalist Nick Fuentes, who has been working on Ye’s 2024 presidential campaign, livestreamed what he said was a call with Twitch star Adin Ross on Dec. 3, in which the two appeared to discuss a potential interview involving Ye and Ross. Ross, a popular Twitch streamer with 7 million followers, is Jewish and said that he was going to “stand up for the Jews” in the interview.
On Dec. 5, political streamer Hasan Piker said in a Twitch stream that he may participate in the interview. Piker has more than 2 million followers on the popular Amazon-owned streaming platform.
Neither Piker nor Ross responded to a request for comment. A Twitch representative responded by pointing NBC News to its hateful conduct policy, which forbids “behavior that is motivated by hatred, prejudice or intolerance.” The representative noted that if a guest on a Twitch-creator-hosted show broke its policies, it would most likely take down the stream and suspend the show's host.
Rez said that even if Ross planned to challenge Ye, she would be concerned that the interview would stoke antisemitic violence.
“I would hope and we would hope that Aiden Ross’ ratings and follower base are put secondary to the safety of Jews,” she said.
The Anti-Defamation League says that antisemitic violence is increasing and reached an all time high in the U.S. in 2021.
Daniel Kelley, the director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center for Technology and Society, said that continuing to interview Ye and “even entertaining the idea is damaging in a certain way.”
“When you give an antisemite a megaphone to shout their antisemitism, whether that’s a large mainstream platform where they have a following or whether you’re a streamer who is giving over your audience to them, I think it normalizes antisemitism and it makes it so that Jews are less safe,” Kelley said.
