Cyberbully
Instagram suspends Kanye for bullying Pete Davidson
The digital feud between West and Pete Davidson has been paused, at least for now.
Time comes for everyone eventually — even Kanye West. The Grammy-winning artist-turned-designer has been going through a well of emotions in the public realm (i.e., social media), following his divorce from Kim Kardashian. West has been directing much of his ire towards Kardashian’s new boyfriend, Pete Davidson, as well as on anyone who might weigh in on the feud between the two — the latest target being Trevor Noah, which has led to Instagram suspending West for a period of 24 hours from the platform for violating its harassment policy.
According to Variety, the social media site deleted content that West posted in response to Noah’s Tuesday night monologue, in which he directed racial slurs at The Daily Show host. The monologue in question featured the comedian cautioning viewers about the ways that West has gone about airing out his private life.
“Over time Kanye has become more and more belligerent in how he tries to get Kim back,” Noah said. “I know everyone thinks it’s a big marketing stunt ... two things can be true: Kim likes publicity and Kim is also being harassed.”
For 24 hours, West will not be able to post, comment, or send DMs. Joe Osborne, a spokesperson for Meta, told Reuters that further action could be taken against the rapper if he continues to violate policies after regaining control of his account.
Public battleground — As Noah pointed out in his monologue, West’s attempts at getting his ex-wife back started out in a relatively innocuous way, as he repeatedly posted about missing her, though even then he paid a little too much attention to her new partner. Referring to Pete Davidson as “SKETE” isn’t exactly the most harmful thing in the world, but West’s posts have devolved from there.
This past weekend, West took to Instagram to make claims that Kardashian was preventing him from seeing his kids at his leisure. She quickly shot these accusations down, commenting on one video: “Please stop with this narrative, you were just here this morning picking up the kids for school.”
At the beginning of this month West also released a claymation music video to accompany his new song “Easy,” which is a not-so-subtle diss track aimed at Davidson. In the video, West is shown kidnapping and then burying the SNL mainstay alive (granted, the burial is only from the neck down).
What’s more troubling is that West has been having these outbursts in a repeated, extensive fashion, often posting a string of content all at once. Here’s to hoping this public feud can end soon — even if it takes a more permanent Instagram ban to make that happen.
