KoonYe's Song Glorifying Hitler Gets Millions of Views On X While Other Platforms Struggle to Remove It

Rapper Kanye West dropped an antisemitic song that has amassed millions of views on X as music streaming services Spotify and SoundCloud struggle to remove the hate-filled track.

via: NBC News

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.

The continued spread of the song and the varying approaches to moderation exemplify an increasingly fractured environment online and on social media, where some platforms have pulled back on their moderation practices in recent years, while others have tried to maintain higher standards when it comes to hate speech.

Elon Musk’s X is where the song has found its biggest audience.

On Thursday, Ye uploaded a video for the song on X, where it remained up as of Friday evening and received more than 6.5 million views. At least 12,000 users and a handful of right-wing influencers quickly shared the clip on their pages. Ye’s most recent repost is of a video mixing historical clips of Hitler together with his song as a backing track. He also shared a video on X of influencer Andrew Tate — a self-described misogynist — playing the song in his car. That video has been viewed over 3 million times.

Ye’s account is verified as an organization on X, meaning it could be eligible for monetization and ads. It’s not clear if Ye’s account uses those features.

The proliferation of the song, despite its invocation of Hitler, is the latest illustration of the power that social media platforms have handed over to some highly followed celebrities and influencers, and their inability or unwillingness to control the spread of some content after it’s been published. While Ye did not appear to attempt to upload the song to other social media platforms, other people have reposted the video.

On Reddit, users on several subreddits devoted to Ye and other rappers uploaded versions of the song to the platform. On r/Kanye, which has 1.1 million members, some users bemoaned Ye’s continued invocation of Hitler and Nazis, while others celebrated the song, posting memes and TikTok videos about it.

A Reddit spokesperson said the platform would remove uploads of the song and posts celebrating its message: "Hate and antisemitism have absolutely no place on Reddit. We have strict rules against hateful content, including antisemitic content. Our internal safety teams proactively enforce these policies across the platform through automated tooling and human review. In line with our sitewide rules, we are removing the song and any celebration of its message."

On Facebook, NBC News found over a dozen reuploads of the “Heil Hitler” music video, and on YouTube half a dozen reuploads of the song that had been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. On TikTok, a handful of reuploads had been posted using the hashtag #hh.

Twitter, Meta, TikTok and YouTube all have hate speech or hateful conduct policies that generally forbid speech targeting a specific group for their race, or hateful invocations of genocide. X and Meta did not respond to requests for comment. A YouTube spokesperson said, “We removed the content and will continue to take down reuploads,” noting that accounts associated with Ye are ineligible for monetization.