Kanye West’s brief foray into the world of livestreaming ended in disaster early Friday morning when the rapper, now known as Ye, was banned from the Twitch platform just seven minutes into his debut broadcast, according to a report on Saturday.
Wearing dark sunglasses and a black jacket, West appeared to be streaming from a motel room, and launched into a hateful rant targeting Jewish people, the LGBTQ+ community and his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian, according to The Daily Mail. During the stream, he gave a Nazi salute and shouted “Heil Hitler,” prompting immediate action from Twitch.
The Amazon-owned platform swiftly removed the channel, posting a message that it was “temporarily unavailable due to a violation of Twitch’s Community Guidelines or Terms of Service.” At the time of the ban, West had fewer than 220 followers on the platform.
In the now-deleted broadcast, West claimed that Elon Musk—owner of X (formerly Twitter)—had given him “free passes” to share discriminatory content online. This comment alluded to Musk’s controversial decision to reinstate West’s X account in late 2022 after a previous ban for antisemitic posts.
This latest outburst adds to a growing list of disturbing incidents involving the 47-year-old rapper. Just last month, West appeared in a video with known white supremacist and Holocaust-denier Nick Fuentes, wearing a diamond-encrusted swastika necklace and declaring, “I’m here with my white supremacist homeboy.” Their association previously made headlines in 2022 when they dined with U.S. President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort, sparking bipartisan condemnation.
West has not issued any public comment on the Twitch ban, but clips and screenshots from the livestream quickly circulated online. Some supporters praised the stream, while others questioned what led to his removal.
Public figures, including actor David Schwimmer, have called on Musk and other platform owners to stop giving West a stage. “We can’t stop a hate-filled man from spewing ignorance,” Schwimmer wrote on Instagram, “but we can stop giving him a mic.”
West has also previously landed in hot water over incendiary rants against Jews, as well as praising former Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. In February, he stoked further controversy after he released a Super Bowl ad that directed people to his website Yeezy.com, which sold one item only: a white T-shirt emblazoned with a black swastika.
Twitch’s rapid response may signal a shift in its approach to hate speech enforcement, as the platform has faced criticism in the past for being slow to remove offensive content.
