TechnologyLast

Wiley banned from Twitter as ‘anti-Semitic’ slurs probed by police

Rapper Wiley has been banned from Twitter after being accused of an anti-Semitic rant.

On Friday night the Grime star shocked followers with a series of tweets and was given an hours long ban.

Users of the site were further enraged when Wiley resumed posting on Saturday morning and the offending tweets were still available to view on the site.

After resounding calls for Twitter to step in, Wiley has now been slapped with a seven day ban from the platform and a number of his posts have been removed.

Amid the controversy, Wiley took to Instagram on Saturday morning and said: "Crawl out from under your little rocks and defend your Jewish privilege".

Earlier today the 41-year-old musician, whose real name is Richard Cowie, was dropped by his management company.

His manager John Woolf said A-List Management had "cut all ties" with the musician following the series of social media posts made on accounts belonging to him on Friday.

Mr Woolf, who is Jewish, wrote on Twitter on Saturday morning: "Following Wiley's antisemitic tweets today we at @A-ListMGMT have cut all ties with him. There is no place in society for antisemitism."

Tower Hamlets police tweeted "We have received a number of reports relating to alleged anti-Semitic tweets posted on social media. The Met takes all reports of anti-Semitism extremely seriously. The relevant material is being assessed."

The Campaign Against Antisemitism has asked police to investigate the content and called for Wiley's accounts to be shut down "to prevent further outpouring of anti-Jewish venom".

A spokesperson told PA: "Our Crime Unit has reported this matter to the Metropolitan Police Service as we consider that Wiley has committed the offence of incitement to racial hatred, which can carry a substantial prison sentence."We have additionally asked Twitter and Facebook, which owns Instagram, to close down his accounts which have hundreds of thousands of followers, to prevent further outpouring of anti-Jewish venom."

They added that they would be contacting the Cabinet Office to ask that Wiley's MBE is revoked.