Twitter Will Not Suspend Farrakhan After Tweet Comparing Jews And Termites
Image by getty images
By Ari Feldman October 18, 2018
Twitter is declining to remove Louis Farrakhan’s account from its site after he posted a video comparing Jews to termites,” Buzzfeed reported.
The site had previously removed his blue verification badge for earlier anti-Semitic remarks. Calls for Farrakhan’s account’s removal came again after he posted a video criticizing Jewish people and making a remark that compared them to termites.
Chelsea Clinton took Louis Farrakhan to task on Twitter Wednesday in reaction to the video, which she compared to Donald Trump referring to immigrants “infesting” the U.S.
Farrakhan, a leader of the Nation of Islam, made the remarks in a speech at a major NOI convention in Detroit of the weekend.
“To the members of the Jewish community that don’t like me, thank you very much for putting my name all over the planet because of your fear of what we represent,” Farrakhan said. “I can go anywhere in the world, and they’ve heard of Farrakhan.”
“They call me an anti-Semite. Stop it,” Farrakhan said. “I’m anti termite.”
Comparing Jews to termites is anti-Semitic, wrong and dangerous. The responsive laughter makes my skin crawl. For everyone who rightly condemned President Trump’s rhetoric when he spoke about immigrants “infesting our country,” this rhetoric should be equally unacceptable to you: https://t.co/EvFp4ULugm
— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) October 17, 2018
Buzzfeed noted that Farrakhan’s tweet apparently violates Twitter’s rules against using “dehumanizing” language on the site.
The site unverified Farrakhan this summer when he tweeted a video with the caption, “Thoroughly and completely unmasking the Satanic Jew and the Synagogue of Satan.”
Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
