Rapper Kanye West, who legally changed his name to Ye in 2021, has been temporarily banned from Instagram for 24 hours, Teen Vogue can confirm.
As reported by Rolling Stone, the temporary suspension was put into effect on the evening of Tuesday, March 16, and was confirmed to Teen Vogue by a spokesperson for Meta, Instagram's parent company.
According to a Meta representative, Ye's Instagram account was placed on a 24-hour restriction for violation of the platform's policies on hate speech, bullying, and harassment. While under the suspension, Ye will be unable to interact on the social media platform for a limited time, and will be unable to post, comment, or send DMs, among other actions. Meta also deleted content from Ye's account, @kanyewest, that violated its policies, including a recent post about comedian and The Daily Show host Trevor Noah.
First reported by TMZ, Ye's suspension was allegedly prompted by the since-deleted post about Noah on the morning of March 16, which contained a racial slur in the caption.
The previous day, Noah had taken time on his talk show to condemn the rapper's public treatment of his former partner Kim Kardashian, calling the “escalating” situation something “more people should pay attention to.”
"You may not feel sorry for Kim because she's rich and famous," said Noah. “But what she's going through is terrifying to watch. And it shines a spotlight on what so many women go through when they choose to leave [toxic relationships]… What we're seeing [here] is one of the most powerful, one of the richest women in the world unable to get her ex to stop texting her, to stop chasing after her, to stop harassing her.”
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Ye's post about Noah belonged to a spree of other posts — according to Rolling Stone, Ye uploaded multiple posts to his Instagram account back-to-back on the morning of March 16, targeting Kardashian's new boyfriend, comedian Pete Davidson, along with other comedians such as Dave Sirus and D.L. Hughley, the latter of which has also spoken out against Ye's public treatment of Kardashian following their divorce.
The official action against Ye comes amid a string of behaviors from the rapper that some are calling “toxic” and constituting harassment.
Since January 2022, Ye has spoken publicly about buying a house across the street from his ex-wife, who was declared “legally single” in early March, and asked fans to confront Davidson in person, encouraging them to “scream” at him. Most notably, Ye recently released a music video for his song “Eazy,” which depicts the rapper abducting, tying up, and burying a claymation model of Davidson. The violent nature of the video has garnered widespread criticism.
A few of Ye's targeted Instagram posts about Davidson, who he refers to online as “Skete,” are still visible on his account. West currently has over 15 million followers on the platform.
A spokesperson for Meta tells Teen Vogue that further restrictive actions are often taken against accounts that repeatedly violate the platform's policies, and confirm that the platform will take additional steps against Ye's account if he continues to break the rules.
Representatives for Ye did not respond to Teen Vogue's request for comment.
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