With Elon Musk holding the reins of Twitter’s destiny (and seemingly steering it toward a cliff), one of the app’s most prolific users is calling for tighter content moderation — albeit in a different form than many of Musk’s most vocal critics. Chuck D, frontman for the pioneering hip-hop group Public Enemy, thinks that if Elon is really all about equalizing free speech on both sides, he’ll ban one of the most controversial terms that has been the focal point of decades of debate.
“Yo @elonmusk the next thing twitter should do is ban the N-Word the N**ga & ni**er by anyone that uses it here,” Chuck tweeted on Friday (December 2). “Then we know things are pointing in an equalized direction. Then you can convince Zuck to do the same at IG FB get it outta here suspend em. It’s as bad as that symbol.”
Yo @elonmusk the next thing twitter should do is ban the N Word the N**ga & ni**er by anyone that uses it here . Then we know things are pointing in a equalized direction. Then you can convince Zuck to do the same at IG FB get it outta here suspend em. It’s as bad as that symbol
— Chuck D (@MrChuckD) December 2, 2022
“That symbol,” of course, is a swastika, for which Kanye West was recently suspended for posting (after just getting his account back from the last time he posted antisemitic commentary).
Chuck predicted a backlash but doubled down on his belief in the ban’s necessity. “It ain’t like kicking somebody’s tail in a fight,” he continued. “It’s all words and images here .. keyboard sht … so I’m not talking about anywhere else except social media right now because it can be done .. there gonna be a lotta people backbroke over their ‘pet’ getting smashed on here.”
It ain’t like kicking somebody’s tail in a fight. It’s all words and images here .. keyboard sht … so I’m not talking about anywhere else except social media right now because it can be done .. there gonna be a lotta people backbroke over their ‘pet’ getting smashed on here..
— Chuck D (@MrChuckD) December 2, 2022
Obviously, Chuck is not much of a proponent of the “reclamation” theory of the word’s use, nor is he a fan of the fact that within minutes of Elon Musk actually taking over Twitter, hate speech on the app skyrocketed, with use of the n-word tripling in just one week.
Of course, Chuck isn’t the only one to posit a solution: Trevor Noah joked on The Daily Show that charging $8 per instance of the word’s use would at least make Twitter profitable. We’ll wait with bated breath for Yasiin Bey’s take, which hopefully takes the form of a sequel to his scathing 1999 song about the subject.