Kanye West suspended from Twitter after claiming 'good things about Hitler' in Alex Jones interview

Kanye West, who has changed his name to 'Ye'. Credit: AP

Kanye West is facing fresh criticism after saying “I like Hitler” as he repeated antisemitic tropes while being interviewed by right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

The rapper, who has legally changed his name to Ye, made the comments after Jones said that he did not deserve to be "demonised" by people calling him a "Nazi".

"I see good things about Hitler also," replied Ye, who was wearing a black hood over his face in the studio.

Hours after the Infowars show aired, Ye was suspended from Twitter when he posted a photo of a swastika merged with the Star of David - just two weeks after being reinstated.

To Mr Jones, he claimed to "love everyone" before repeating antisemitic conspiracy theories during the InfoWars outlet's interview.

Ye added: "I am done with the classifications. Every human being has something of value that they brought to the table - especially Hitler."

Adidas ends partnership with Ye over antisemitic remarks
Infowars founder Alex Jones appears in court to testify during the Sandy Hook defamation damages trial in September. Credit: Tyler Sizemore/Hearst Connecticut Media via AP, Pool, File

In another clip, Jones, who was ordered to pay £869 million to bereaved families who suffered from his false claim that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax, denounced Nazism.

"The Nazis, in my view, were thugs that shut people down and did a lot of really bad things," he said, to which Ye appeared to reply: "But they did good things too, we are going to stop dissing the Nazis all the time."

The comments sparked an immediate backlash on social media over Ye's apparent defence of Hitler, who oversaw the systematic murder of six million Jewish people during the Holocaust.

Frozen star Josh Gad said: "It’s not what Kanye West says that scares me. It’s that he has 30 million followers who listen to his insanity on top of a cheerleader in the form of the current owner of this platform."

American writer Touré branded Ye's comments as "disgusting", saying his previous diagnosis with bipolar disorder should not be used as an excuse to defend them.

“This isn’t about mental illness," he tweeted. "Stop defending Kanye or having sympathy for him because he’s bipolar or something. His virulent and repeated antisemitism isn’t tied to that."

It had only been two weeks since the rapper was allowed back onto Twitter, having been suspended over previous antisemitic comments shortly before new owner Elon Musk's takeover.

Mr Musk confirmed the latest suspension in a tweet replying to a Ye post of an unflattering photo of the billionaire, which Ye called his “final tweet.” “I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended,” Musk tweeted.

The backlash comes as Ye, who plans on running for president in 2024, continues to face the fallout from a series of controversies.

The 45-year-old artist provoked a storm of criticism after attending Paris Fashion Week in a T-shirt with the slogan "White Lives Matter" - a phrase often adopted by white supremacists.

Ye's talent agency dropped him and companies including Adidas and Balenciaga cut ties with him over his antisemitic comments, but he is now able to broadcast his views to his 32.2 million followers on Twitter.

Since Mr Musk took over the company in October, Twitter has laid off more than half of the platform’s 7,500 staff, which has increased fears about the firm’s ability to successfully moderate the site to prevent hate speech, with substantially reduced staff numbers.

The entrepreneur claimed that a short spike in hate speech after he took charge had quickly been reversed.

But data shared with ITV News shows that in the week before this claim, the use of one of the most offensive racial slurs went up by 197%, while a homophobic term jumped by 31%.

Twitter says it "remains committed to and will continue to invest in the moderation of illegal and harmful content”.

In October, Ye offered to buy Parler, a social media platform associated with right-leaning, far-right and libertarian figures which grew in popularity following Donald Trump's 2021 Twitter ban.

At the time, Ye and owners Parlement Technologies said the acquisition would be completed in the last three months of the year.

But yesterday the company said Ye is no longer buying the site, adding: “This decision was made in the interest of both parties in mid-November."

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