Twitter freezes Louis Farrakhan’s account, hides anti-Semitic tweet it says he must delete

Twitter said Tuesday it had locked the account of Louis Farrakhan until the black nationalist minister deletes a 2018 chirp that ran afoul of the company’s new rules prohibiting hateful content.

The October post, in which Farrakhan seemingly compared Jews to insects, has been hidden by Twitter.

The new social media guidelines, introduced Tuesday, dictate that posts that break the rules must be deleted. But the posts will not result in permanent account suspensions if they went up before the rules changed, a spokeswoman for the social media giant told the Daily News.

Farrakhan, the 86-year-old leader of the Nation of Islam, has a lengthy history of making anti-Semitic and homophobic comments. He said in the now-hidden tweet, “I’m not an anti-Semite. I’m anti-Termite.”

The tweet prompted immediate outcry when he posted it in the fall, but Twitter said at the time it wasn’t in violation of the active regulations against hateful speech.

The changes instituted Tuesday expanded Twitter’s “rules against hateful conduct to include language that dehumanizes others on the basis of religion,” the company said in a statement announcing the shift.

“We create our rules to keep people safe on Twitter, and they continuously evolve to reflect the realities of the world we operate within,” Twitter said in the statement.

Farrakhan has the option to appeal the decision, but the spokeswoman told The News on Tuesday that she had no appeal to report.

In May, Facebook announced it would ban Farrakhan from the platform.

The Nation of Islam did not immediately respond to a request for comment.