Twitter Finally Suspends Azalea Banks’ Account After Another Racist Tirade

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Azalea Banks has developed something of a reputation for herself by going on senseless, hate-fueled Twitter rants, and went on her latest a couple of days ago, using an assortment of horrible, racist, homophobic, xenophobic terms to attack Zayn Malik. Unfortunately, that’s usually as far as it goes with Banks, who has taken to Twitter to assault everyone from Iggy Azalea and Lady Gaga to a particularly alarming tirade against Sarah Palin—and though the Twitterverse always expresses outrage, heretofore the platform has done nothing about it. But that’s all over now, because Banks’ account is suspended.

Yup. You read that right. Try typing in twitter.com/azealiabanks into your web browser. What do you see? An error message, which reads, “This account has been suspended.” Banks has also been removed from a headlining show at London’s Born & Bred Festival, and she’s being investigated by the U.K.’s Home Office as to whether she should be allowed into the U.K.

We’re not going into all of the gory details in terms Banks’ latest vile tweets, but suffice it to say that they were really ugly. Among other things, she called Malik a “faggot” and a “sand n–ga,” claiming that he’d ripped off her “Yung Rapunxel” video in his latest, “Like I Would.” Twitter immediately erupted, pointing out that a non-famous person’s account would be suspended immediately. (Truth.)

The people have been heard. Twitter indeed went ahead and suspended Banks’ account, which really should have been done a long time ago. According to the platform’s help page about suspensions, it looks like Banks’ account will be reactivated if and when Twitter deems it appropriate — the language about when suspended accounts can be reactivated is vague.

“When an account engages in abusive behavior, like sending threats to others or impersonating other accounts, we may suspend it temporarily or, in some cases, permanently,” Twitter says. A little late to the party on this one, as Banks has been engaging in such “abusive behavior” pretty much since she started tweeting, it seems. But better late than never, we suppose.