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Welp, it happened. After an eight-month ban from the platform, Ye aka Kanye West has returned to Elon Musk’s Twitter (or X, or whatever the hell Elon has arbitrarily changed the name to). But, according to Hip Hop DX, Yeezy’s return to Twitter comes with a couple of stipulations.
First, Musk reinstated Ye on Saturday under the condition that he refrain from using the social media platform to express his antisemitic or otherwise bigoted views. The second stipulation appears to be that Ye won’t be able to make money directly from his Twitter account.
From Hip Hop DX:
However, Musk also made clear that West won’t be able to monetize his Twitter platform, nor will advertisements appear next to his Tweets.
Twitter’s Help Center stipulates: “Any organization that purchases a subscription to Verified Organizations will receive a gold checkmark and square avatar if they are a business or non-profit, or a grey checkmark and square avatar if they are a governmental or multilateral organization.”
Ryan Mac, a tech reporter for The New York Times, claimed that the company chose to give West a gold checkmark because “Ye” is the rapper’s company. “The company tells me that Kanye’s account has a gold check because it views “Ye” as Kanye West’s overall brand,” he tweeted on Saturday (July 29). “It’s unclear if he will run ads, but as a gold checkmark verified organization, he has the ability to do so.”
The move to bring Ye back to Twitter comes as Musk and his social media company are threatening litigation against the Center for Countering Digital Hate, an independent non-profit research organization that found hate, racism and disinformation had increased substantially on Twitter in recent months, which, if true, would be no surprise since it was widely reported that the use of racial slurs skyrocketed on the platform shortly after Musk acquired it.
Hopefully, Kanye can keep his Nazi love to himself from now on instead of advertising it on social media. Better yet, hopefully, he truly has learned a lot from the backlash and consequences his antisemitism caused him to face. Hopefully, Ye has grown up a little.
