Azealia Banks is known for saying exactly what she thinks, and a lot of times, she can be pretty offensive. Even if you aren’t a Sarah Palin fan, Banks’ Twitter war with the former Alaska governor got pretty ugly. Despite the rapper telling her Twitter followers and everyone else watching that Palin should be “gang raped,” among other awful things, Twitter decided that she had not broken any rules and her account would not be suspended.
It is entertaining to learn how the entire feud between Azealia Banks and Sarah Palin got started. Banks jumped on the social media platform, as she often does, to react to a story that she read about Palin. The problem is, the whole story was fake and just a satire piece. Eventually, Banks offered up a quasi-apology for mistaking the news as real, but that doesn’t mean Palin is dropping her plans to sue.
Twitter won’t suspend Azealia Banks over Sarah Palin rape threats https://t.co/SA7EQN1rcb pic.twitter.com/9hVSuWYDg1
— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) April 9, 2016
While Azealia’s tweets were pretty raunchy and offensive, her tirade took a more serious turn after she urged fans in Alaska to show up and harass Palin at her house. She even suggested that someone up there find a way to get ahold of Palin’s hair so she could make a voodoo doll out of it. At that point, she was urging her fans to seek out Sarah Palin and make contact.
The Twitter terms of service say that direct and indirect threats of violence are not allowed. The rules also say that users “may not incite or engage in the targeted abuse or harassment of others.” Palin submitted a complaint to Twitter on Wednesday about Azealia Banks’ conduct on the social media platform. Palin’s complaint read as follows.
“The high profile twitter user @AZEALIABANKS openly continues to advocate for rape, violent, brutal sexual & physical violence in ‘offensive, vulgar, abusive and obscene’ terms towards a targeted woman and her family in clear violation of Twitter’s strong stand against this sort of behavior, This user continues to make ‘threats of violence’ and continues to ‘promote violence’ against a targeted [sic] individual and her family. This harassment by the user’s own public admission, was ‘unprovoked’ and is ‘is one-sided’ and ‘includes threats’ – direct, explicit and graphic. @AZEALIABANKS is ‘promoting violence’ advocating ‘direct attacks’ and ‘threats’ on the basis of ‘race’, ‘gender’ and ‘religious affiliation’. I am encouraged that you ‘do not allow accounts whose primary purpose is inciting harm towards others on the basis of these categories’ as for the past 72 hours this has been 90% of the of tweets coming from this @AZEALIABANKS. This user has openly tweeted the fact she selected to target this individual based on her opposition to the target’s beliefs. I am encouraged that your policy includes: ‘In order to ensure that people feel safe expressing diverse opinions and beliefs, we do not tolerate behavior that crosses the line into abuse, including behavior that harasses, intimidates, or uses fear to silence another user’s voice.’ The resulting media coverage has created over 500,000 google results in a three day period already with seemingly no action from Twitter to what is a very high profile violation of your own stated Terms of Service. I look forward to your swift response, your swifter action and reaffirming for members of your community (of which I am one) that threats of sexual & racial violence against women will not stand on your platform.”
The complaint came complete with footnotes detailing each tweet directed at Palin that she believed was offensive and abusive. There were also links to other articles about Banks and her historically erratic behavior and her tendencies to attack people on the internet.
According to Twitter rules, content that is abusive or threatening is not allowed on their platform. Breitbart reported that after investigating Azealia Banks’ account , she would not have her privileges suspended because she did not violate their terms. That’s pretty shocking considering that Banks tweeted several messages about the former vice presidential candidate, some of which said, “get headf****d by a big, veiny, ashy black d**k” and for “the biggest burliest blackest n*****s’ to ‘run a train on her.”
It’s unclear exactly what someone would have to say or do on Twitter in order to get their account suspended. Or maybe they just need to not be a celebrity. It has been pointed out that Twitter tends to lean more toward the liberal side of politics. Is it possible that they gave Azealia Banks a pass because of who Sarah Palin is?
Sarah Palin threatens to sue Azealia Banks over twitter slander: https://t.co/akJ6pcdzNH pic.twitter.com/QqclXOknqW
— REVOLT TV (@RevoltTV) April 9, 2016
The feud between Banks and Palin got even more entertaining when the former Alaskan governor forgot to proofread her lengthy response to Banks. In a call to end the feud and come together, Sarah Palin wrote, “Why don’t we strengthen both our platforms and work together on something worthwhile – like condoning racism, along with empowering young women.” While many of Azealia Banks’ tweets are offensive and probably don’t condone coming together, she certainly doesn’t want to condone racism either.
At this point, the Twitter war between Azealia Banks and Sarah Palin has been deleted but plenty of screenshots remain. Who knows if this feud is over, or if Palin will follow through with a lawsuit against the rapper.
[Photo by Cassandra Hannagan/Getty Photes]