Disgraced rapper Kanye West has been banned from Twitch following a barrage of antisemitic and hate-filled remarks during his first stream,
The 47-year-old, who now goes by Ye, appeared on the platform wearing Prada sunglasses and a black jacket before performing a Nazi salute and exclaiming “Heil Hitler” to his viewers. West also urged his followers to “wear swastikas” during the brief broadcast.
Twitch swiftly shut down the stream, replacing West’s channel, which had fewer than 220 followers, with a standard notice citing a “violation of Twitch’s community guidelines or terms of service”.
West’s Twitch ban comes after he posted a Hitler photo with the GOAT emoji on X, despite a 2022 ban for praising Hitler, with X later telling Jewish News his latest post “hasn’t broken our safety policies.”
During the livestream, West also directed attacks at his ex-wife Kim Kardashian and praised tech mogul Elon Musk, claiming the X owner had given him “free passes” to post discriminatory content. He compared Musk’s leniency to having “an unlimited credit card at Louis Vuitton” that allowed him to “buy more and more things”.
The social media reaction was immediate and scathing. One user said: “He was live for 420 seconds and probably caused 900 terms of service violations,” while another wrote, “Dude only created an account to say some antisemitism. A grown-ass adult went out of their way to create an account just for that.”
West’s appearance on Twitch follows a string of increasingly extreme displays. Last month, he posted a video on X showing himself wearing a diamond-encrusted swastika necklace alongside white supremacist Nick Fuentes, whom he introduced as his “white supremacist homeboy”.
In previous social media posts, West has openly declared, “I’m a Nazi,” and “I don’t like or trust no Jewish person, and this is completely sober with no Hennessy.” Other messages included, “I’m racist. Stereotypes exist for a reason and they all be true,” and “You can get money with Jewish people but they always gonna steal and invite you over to they house on Friday.” He also claimed, “Jewish people actually hate white people and use black people.”
His conduct prompted calls for bans across major platforms. In February actor David Schwimmer publicly urged Elon Musk to remove West from X, highlighting his repeated antisemitic rhetoric to millions of followers.
It remains unclear whether Twitch intends to reinstate West’s account. Given the severity of his conduct, a permanent ban is widely anticipated.
The Jewish News has approached Twitch for comment.
