Summary The man behind ‘Yolocaust’ website stencilled offensive messages on Twitter HQ in Hamburg.
(Web Desk) – In a bid to capture Twitter firm’s attention after failing to delete hate speech from their website, an Israeli atirist living in Berlin, stenciled offensive messages outside their Hamburg office.
According to BBC, Shahak Shapira, who is Jewish, said over the past six months he had reported about 450 hate comments on Twitter and Facebook.
“The statements I reported weren’t just plain insults or jokes, but absolutely serious threats of violence,” says Shapira in a video that emerged showing him stenciling 30 tweets.
I reported about 300 hate tweets. Twitter didn t delete em, so I sprayed them in front of their office #HEYTWITTER https://t.co/wPqiwaxd7J
— Shahak Shapira (@ShahakShapira) August 7, 2017
“Germany needs a final solution to Islam,” reads one.
“Let’s gas the Jews,” says another, in reference to the Nazis’ murder of six million Jews during World War Two.
“If Twitter forces me to see these things, then they’ll have to see them too,” the artist said in the video, posted on Monday.
Shapira describes the comments as “not just plain insults or jokes,” “they include statements that are xenophobic, or involved holocaust denial.”
The satirist explains the nine responses he received from Twitter team said the tweets did not violate the site’s rules.
Shapira said,“I haven’t received a single mail telling me a tweet was actually removed.”
In the video titled #HeyTwitter, Shapira talks about how he made stencils of the hate-filled messages, and then travelled to Hamburg to paint them in front of the Twitter headquarters in Hamburg.
"Tomorrow," he said, "they will have to look at all the beautiful tweets their company loves to ignore so much."
Photo: Shahak Shapira YouTube
Hate speech is a sensitive subject in Germany due to the country’s history and hate crimes committed by the Nazi regime in World War Two.
In June, Germany passed a law which could force social media companies to delete racist or slanderous posts within 24 hours, failing which the company would be fined up to 50 million Euros.
Shapira in the video compares the responses he received from Facebook and Twitter. He explains that he had reported 150 comments to Facebook during the same six month period, and 80% were removed within one to three days.
Twitter s head of public policy for Europe, Karen White, told Reuters: "Over the past six months, we ve introduced a host of new tools and features to improve Twitter for everyone. We ve also improved the in-app reporting process for our users and we continue to review and iterate on our policies and their enforcement."
The site is said to be acting against 10 times as many abusive accounts as it did this time last year.
Shapira in the past has made headlines when the satirist took controversial stand against a selfie-taking at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial.
He copied 12 selfie pictures taken at the memorial from social media and published them on a website called “Yolocaust” – a combination of the popular social media hashtag Yolo- you only live once and Holocaust.
The satirist previously took pictures of people from social media and replaced the Holocaust memorial with scenes from concentration camps. Photo: Zwentner website
Each selfie image was altered and removed from its original background and was replaced with scenes from concentration camps. He said at the time: "Let us see what happens, let s see how many stupid, inappropriate pictures I have to see on the internet.
"And if you re asking me is this right or wrong, then that s a good thing. It doesn t have to be one or the other, just having the debate is good."
