After a few hours of interruption, it was reactivated. The Twitter account of French rapper Booba was “temporarily suspended” this Saturday due to a violation of the social network’s content policy. “The account of
@booba is temporarily suspended because he violates the policy of Twitter in matters of media ”, one could read Saturday on the home page of his account.
Followed by more than 5 million subscribers on the social network, the rapper had tweeted this week many times to oppose the vaccine pass, sometimes disseminating false information. But contrary to what many Internet users may have thought, it is obviously not because of his positions on the vaccine and on government policy that the Duke of Boulogne was censored.
Since two days #Booba criticized the government and “health” policy.
Welcome to China 🙂 pic.twitter.com/ELX4CXr9nj
– 🟢 Ezork (@ Drzmc4) January 8, 2022
“An Ewok mutilated with a lightsaber”
The rapper, who was finally able to recover the use of his account late Saturday afternoon, explained the reasons that prompted Twitter to suspend his account. “They suspended me because they found my profile picture to be inappropriate. I am only giving my opinion on a delicate subject by relaying the truth. I invite the people, sports singers, actors, etc. to do the same. Thanks everyone. Let’s stay free, ”he tweeted, denying some rumors.
According to a screenshot posted by the rapper, Twitter would have deemed his profile photo – Darth Vader holding an Ewok mutilated with a lightsaber in one hand – too violent for the platform’s standards. In order to recover the use of his account, the rapper had to change his profile picture, which he replaced with an image representing … Care bears.
Fake news @leparisien_tech they suspended me because they found my profile picture to be inappropriate. I am only giving my opinion on a delicate subject by relaying the truth. I invite the people sports singers, actors etc. to do the same. Thanks everyone. Let’s stay free 🏴☠️ pic.twitter.com/NvYkVqu9Fq
– Booba (@booba) January 8, 2022
This is not the first time that the rapper has faced social media moderation rules. In 2020, Instagram had made the decision to permanently ban it from its platform, after several exchanges and clashes with other rappers in particular.