Spotify, SoundCloud and other platforms have pulled the song, but its spread underscores the challenges tech platforms face in removing content that violate their policies.
Spotify, SoundCloud and other tech platforms have worked to remove a new song from Ye that praises Adolf Hitler, but the song and its video have continued to proliferate online including across X, where it has racked up millions of views.
On various mainstream and alternative tech platforms this week, Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has been able to share his latest song, titled “Heil Hitler,” along with its companion title, “WW3,” which similarly glorifies Hitler, the architect of the Holocaust.
While some platforms have taken steps to attempt to pull down the song, others have seemingly let it spread freely.
Honest question: is Ye just mentally ill, or is Russia manipulating him?
Very mentally ill.
But also it’s super easy to manipulate a mentally ill person. Just keep whispering in his ear that he’s totally right and oh by the way he should be upset about this other thing too, and he will take the bait. Every. Time.
Both? Just like the conspiracy theory crowd.
Russia is manipulating him
Meanwhile my social accounts get shut down within minutes of me posting PG beach photos that the algorithm claims are promoting sexual activity. I know I’m sexy, but tech platforms aren’t facing challenges, this is intentional.
Ye was briefly able to upload the song to the popular music streaming services Spotify and SoundCloud.
Isn’t SoundCloud in Germany? [Checks Wikipedia] Yes, it is.
Isn’t promotion of Hitler and Nazism in Germany a serious crime? [Checks Qwant] Yes, it is.
E.g.
Imprisonment, not exceeding five years, or a fine, will be the punishment for whoever, in public or in an assembly, approves, denies or minimizes an act described in § 220a(1) [i.e., genocide] committed under National Socialism, in a manner which is liable to disturb the public peace.
EXTRADITE KANYE!
Honest question: would this dude fall into an oppressed group that Nazis would target? Seriously. He is not White, German, blue eyed and blonde. Am I missing something other than a likely mental health problem that is causing this dude to write and record such music?
He’s become the worst of humanity.
What the hell happened to him?
It’s literally called “Heil Hitler”.
I think anyone who defends him needs to back up now.
Whoah, whoah, we don’t want to be jumping to conclusions about who may, or may not, be a Nazi. /s
removeds See My Twitter But They Don’t See How I Be Feeling So I Became A Nazi
Lyrics from the song
There’sa lot of hateful racism among many young hip hop fans
It’s music. I don’t really care what the lyrics are, we are censoring music and art. I don’t like where this is going.
Police in Australia have been cracking down on drill rap and it’s abhorrent to see.
Who gets to decide what art is objectionable and have it censored? We’re throwing ourselves toward an authoritarian and dystopian future.
Be the change you desire and just don’t listen to music you disagree with.
Private companies can continue to delist what they wish (monopolies are a separate issue), but we need to be careful what we ask our legislators and governments for.
Nah this is fucked, stop trying to be whatever this is.
I don’t know why this has to keep being repeated. It’s not hard.
Free speech does not mean you are entitled to have a private entity like a website host your content or speech.
He is welcome to sing this on the streets. He is welcome to publish this himself, be it hosted by a website he creates or in a physical medium.
He is not entitled to it being placed on retail shelves. He is not entitled to have it hosted on YouTube or Spotify.
This isn’t hard. The government of the United States has made absolutely no moves to silence this song. He can sing it and personally distribute it as much as he wants. But no one can be forced to distribute it for him
No one is claiming private entities have to host it lol, did you even read my entire comment? I literally wrote private companies can delist what they want
So you’re ranting about what exactly? Kanye has faced no repercussions from the government. The only thing that’s happened was backlash from fans and private entities not hosting his songs.
Still trying to find the “attack on free speech” you ranted about
Not “ranting” about anything. In Australia the government cracks down on music. Don’t be like us.
The government isn’t silencing him. Private entities are deciding not to support it. Forcing them to would be against free speech.
Over here it’s the government cracking down on music, and that’s the lens I have
Private entities should be free to delist content (or not) of their own choice
So we’re doing nazi apologism now?
They’re really embracing the “let him cook” meme.
You may want to consider the tolerance of intolerance here champ
You need to spend some time thinking on the (misnamed) “paradox of tolerance”. The idea you’re espousing is exactly the most critical, fundamental misunderstanding of tolerance as a moral value.
The “paradox of tolerance” is the idea that one must even tolerate the intolerant - it would be a paradox because this tolerance ultimately ensures the unbridled spread of intolerance. Folks weakly on the left have misunderstood this forever.
But there is no paradox, never has been. Tolerance must never be given to the hatefully intolerant. Nazism can never be tolerated, it must be defeated as quickly as possible everywhere it sprouts up. And I do absolutely mean violently, I am not talking about just simple ostracism or censorship.
A society that tolerates the hatefully intolerant is fully doomed. Please, come to realize that you are not advocating for anything high-minded, you are advocating for the destruction of all things beautiful, art or otherwise.
We’re throwing ourselves toward an authoritarian and dystopian future.
Precisely why we must not allow the glorification of nazism to perpetuate.
Be the change you desire
That’s illegal.
Dude. There’s a limit to that expression. There’s a reason why nobody likes Nazi’s and they deserve a punch in the face at minimum. Don’t be on the repeat side of history by performing some kind mental gymnastics to preserve freedom of expression and inadvertantly protect Nazism with that argument. That’s what apologists do now and did in the past.
Always remember this: if you have 10 people eating dinner at a table and 1 of them is a Nazi, how many nazi’s do you have? The answer is 10 Nazis.
And none of those platforms have to host the material. I don’t know what drill rap is.
Who gets to decide? The gallery, the sculpture garden, and YouTube.
I agree with you, BTW. However, I haven’t seen any government attempt to censor this song yet. Song sucks though, and I’m a fan of early Kanye.
Private entities should be free to delist whatever they choose
In Australia the government is banning music/artists
Just use your guns to protect your other freedoms?
You are disgusting. Your argument is wack and holds no water. Social media has no obligation to host hate speech. Fuck you for being a bottom dwelling Nazi apologist.
Not defending the OP but his argument is that here in Australia the government is doing the censoring, he’s all for platforms delisting it if they wish. As an aside, that’s effectively the same thing (as argued by people like Philip Adams here in Australia)
As an Australian, I find government censorship of the arts problematic, this case is glaringly easy to agree with but there are a plethora of edge case issues that leave me feeling uneasy and I’m squarely on the side of Karl Popper with this.
As to everyone “disliking nazis”, thats not true. Russia is led by one, as is the US and India, the current Austrian Government is led by a a political party set up by literal Nazis, across the border the AfD is praised by the US.
Look at Hannah Ardent and Albert Einstein’s letter to the newspapers about the horror of Israel. So I’d suggest there is broad support for nazis, unless u mean literal nazis from Germany circa WW2, of which there aren’t many left but we had one in charge of NATO, another designing rockets for Nasa and on and on, so there is that.
https://archive.org/details/AlbertEinsteinLetterToTheNewYorkTimes.December41948
Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the “Freedom Party” (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.
This seems like it was written by AI as it addresses practically nothing written here but goes off on tangents. The couple pieces that were relevant are wrong. There is nothing here to suggest that government censorship has fuck all to do with Kanye’s “art” and also OP said jack fucking shit to indicate they’re ok with social media taking it down. They seem very opposed to it actually. Which is why everyone hates them.
Is it still music and art that should be platformed when it calls for genocide?
Edit: whoops I fell for sealioning again
The sun beams down on a brand new day
No more welfare tax to pay
Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light
Jobless millions whisked away
At last we have more room to play
All systems go to kill the poor tonightGonna kill, kill, kill, kill, kill the poor
Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill the poor
Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill the poor tonightShould the song I quoted be banned? If not, where exactly do you draw the line?
Removed by mod
The song is literally called Heil Hitler…
Removed by mod
Why was my comment removed?
Yeah, if he’s singing about how we should all gas the Jews, or kill all the Palestinians, or mass murder all Ukrainians, it’s all fine, it’s just art, you see?
I’m glad I don’t have your big smooth brain
First of all, these are private companies, not governments. They can technically do whatever TF they want, and we probably shouldn’t have ceded so much power to them.
…Anyway, I think you have a point. Or at least part of one.
It’s reasonable to draw red lines like “no nazism on our platform.” But at the end of the day Spotify and such can ban whatever they want, with no repercussions since it’s basically a network of defacto, legally shielded monopolies.
So how would we feel if, say, they started banning podcasts a little too popular and too critical of the president?
In other words, banning nazism as a policy is fine, but arbitrarily banning what looks bad to them is indeed going to be a problem.
With the art excuse we are at the point that saying “heil Hitler” is not okay but singing it is okay.
Bad take on Ye’s Hitler music
Who gets to decide what art is objectionable and have it censored?
Me
He’s a Nazi and he should be fucking shot.
Are you saying you think it’s ok to give a platform to content explicitly promoting genocide and Nazism so long as it has a beat?
Are you saying that Germany should never have banned NSDAP?
“If you don’t like the party, just don’t join it” is what you’re saying?
🤔
No.
Also: Defensive Democracy
So if there is a new song that lists all of the high up government official’s addresses and tells everyone to kill them and a billionaire will give them a million dollars to do it, that would be cool? You think that would be art? Nah dude, those song people would get a knock on their door before the song plays though 10 times.
That’s not really at issue here.
This isn’t the government deciding what art is objectionable, and arresting those who play music they don’t like. This is a private company deciding what it wants to host in it’s library, that it curates, it pays license fees for, and sells subscriptions too. Ye or any Nazi absolutely has the right to make and sell any music they want. They however don’t have the right to force another company to sell their music for them.While this can certainly be interpreted as defending awful people (which I’m sure someone will, prepare for downvotes because many only read the first paragraph and do not understand nuance) with an awful message, I tend to agree with you.
Music is art, and like any artwork its quality does not depend on its message. I have to admit that the gay fish was never the kind of artist I enjoyed simply because the rap tracks I like are few and far between. (Wtf is drill rap?)
But to use a different angle: I’ve always been a metal head, and there’s quite a lot of black metal that I enjoy. And as most sensible people understand, that doesn’t make me a satanist, nor do I endorse burning of churches.
So the obvious question is then: Is Ye’s newer stuff any good? Well, fuck if I know. I cannot name a single song Ye made. But he’s not exactly making it more tempting to try and like his stuff. Anyway, fuck him and fuck the horse he rode in on.
EDIT: I did some research. I remember Golddigger. That’s all.
Yeah I couldn’t give a shit about Kanye but to censor music and art is a bit far
https://open.spotify.com/track/1sL87X0pfBCIi0oJp7PefE
Some Australian drill rap for ya
Unsurprisingly, it’s not my cup of tea. And I don’t even drink tea.
Why are they censoring that, though? I didn’t notice any lyrics more controversial than what you’d hear elsewhere.
They have a documentary if you are interested https://www.netflix.com/au/title/81485425
It was so funny when Alex Jones was like “yeah Kanye we know what you mean, the Nazis did some good things for the German people under Hitler but you don’t ‘love’ Hitler.”
And Kanye was like
“I LOOOOOOOOOVE HITLERRRRRRRRR!”
He has his net and his bottle of yoo-hoo. Get it? Net N yoo-hoo??
You know you’re insane when you make Alex Jones look reasonable.
Tbf, Alex Jones is more of a liar than he is insane. But yeah he’s both.
Take your meds, Kanye
Mental illness is no longer an acceptable excuse.
This is full blown malignant narcissism. And it makes people associated with him lots of money.
Eh more like he needs to be taken out to pasture.
They don’t make a Clozapine big enough.
Why? We’re giving him exactly what a narcissist needs like the rest of us need oxygen:
Attention.
Almost the entire world’s media is geared to push outrage.
I’ll fight Kanye for charity. Live on the internet.
Tell him punkrocksportsfan is not afraid to fight him. Why’s he afraid of punkrocksportsfan?
I’ll fight that dude. Don’t gotta get ready if you stay ready, right.
Name the time and place Mr Kanye West.
Careful he might try to suck your dick.
A bj is a bj.
You know what they say about letting a Nazi suck your dick…
What do they say?
I would like to pre-purchase tickets for this event.
How do we goad Elon into joining in also?
Oh fuck yeah man. You in his weight class?
No I’m a middle weight he’s a fatass. I don’t care I’ll fight him anyway.
But he’s totally not a Nazi because he is black.
Doesn’t he self identify as a Nazi?
He says that, but it’s for attention. He’s rich enough to not suffer any consequences for his behavior.
Did you know Auschwitz had a special luxury VIP section where all the richest Jews got treated really well and each one got a Nazi guard assigned to serve them? If you didn’t know that it’s probably because I just made it up.
Kanye’s insane to think the people he’s cosying up to won’t turn on him in a second.
No, they really fucking didn’t, and fuck the Nazi bullshit. Goodbye.
You started writing that reply before you finished reading my post, didn’t you?
Where’s the /s?
There is no sarcasm.
Why you would think there is?
He’s a raging a narcissist who will say anything for attention and relevance.
No, everyone knows he’s a lunatic doing it for attention. When you’re that rich, the people who will tell you “No” are very few, and he can afford to ignore them. Unfortunate.
“We’re not Nazis! Elon and Laura Ingram didn’t do the salute! Yo did you hear that ye song on TotallyNotNaziland X? So good!”
I’ll break it down for you:
He can’t have his kids because he doesn’t take his medicine, so he tries to get his kids back by becoming a Nazi. Background singers say N***** Heil Hitler for the chorus and then Hitler is saying shit in German at the end. It’s pretty bad, has no logic, but does have rhyming words.
If you want to watch it to see how truly shitty it is, here is a nitter link from probably a sketch person. It’s not giving traffic to them because it’s nitter, not X: https://nitter.net/jakeshieldsajj/status/1920322039056838970#m
X has become such a shithole that they guy under it asks why someone would ever post a song from a black artist. And of course he doesn’t say “black”.
I’m wondering how long it took to round up enough backup people to chant heil hitler
If you want to watch it
Pass, thanks.
Who listens to this shitty artist anyways. I get the shock or discovery plays, but dude is straight trash anyways lol.
i WISH i didn’t like his stuff, but years ago (pre-Nazi shit by a long time) he used to be a really talented artist and he had a really major effect on rap as a genre. i don’t listen to his old stuff since the Nazi shit cuz he needs consequences fr, no matter how small, but it honestly sucks a lot cuz he has some really really great music. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is one of the GOAT albums imo, and as sad as it is to say about someone profoundly mentally ill i think it woulda been best for his career if he died around 2016 😭
You can just pirate it and he doesn’t get any money, yet you get the music.
Every time it comes on i think that, but it’s usually in the car and i forget by the time it’s relevant lmao
I could never stand him even at the peak of his popularity.
The “Golddigger” song wasn’t terrible, but then, I’m not a huge rap fan, so that’s the only song of his I know.
i couldn’t name a single one, or recognize him or his songs from the audio alone. and i’m only cursed with knowing what the asshat even looks like because the attention whore gets the media attention he craves.
Same. I could probably fill a page of A4 with stuff I know about him because I got fed it by The Algorithm, and yet nowhere on that page would there be the name of one of his songs.
Understood. I was just stating my experience.
I have no desire to delve deeper.
People have their own music tastes and that’s okay
For example, you now have something other than Skrewdriver to listen to.
