Update September 16: Twitter has denied censoring Nicki Minaj saying that it “did not take any enforcement action” on her account.
Nicki Minaj claims she has been put in “Twitter jail” following her recent tweets promoting personal decision making over the COVID-19 vaccine that were interpreted by many as being anti-vaccine.
The artist sparked backlash from several media outlets this week after revealing she is unvaccinated, told a story about her “cousin in Trinidad” who is was refusing to take the vaccine because a friend of his claimed “his testicles became swollen” and he “became impotent” after getting the the shot.
“So just pray on it & make sure you’re comfortable with ur decision, not bullied,” Minaj added.
Minaj had been firing back at MSNBC host Joy Reid after she was attacked by Reid for sharing her opinion on Twitter, with Reid saying that Minaj was encouraging skepticism toward the coronavirus vaccine.
“They want you to get vaccinated for the Met. if I get vaccinated it won’t for the Met. It’ll be once I feel I’ve done enough research. I’m working on that now,” Minaj wrote.
Reid publicly condemned Minaj on air. “You have a platform, sister, that is 22 million followers, OK? I have 2 million followers. You have 22 million followers on Twitter,” Reid blasted at Minaj.
“For you to use your platform to encourage our community to not protect themselves and save their lives, my God sister, you can do better than that! You got that platform – it’s a blessing that you got that! The people listen to you – and they listen to you more than they listen to me!”
Minaj accused Reid of lying about her. “This is what happens when you’re so thirsty to down another black woman (by the request of the white man), that you didn’t bother to read all my tweets,” Minaj tweeted. “‘My God SISTER do better; imagine getting ur dumb ass on tv a min after a tweet to spread a false narrative about a black woman.”
This evening, Minaj shared a clip of Fox News Host Tucker Carlson who, in a segment, said that Minaj’s comments seemed “sensible.”
“This has not anything to do with the physical effect of the vaccine that makes our political class mad,” Carlson said in the clip. “It’s the last part of Nicki Minaj’s tweet that enrages them, the part where she says, ‘You should pray on it,’ make the decision yourself like a free human being and quote, ‘Don’t be bullied.’”
Carlson then said further, “So our media and public health officials didn’t like this because they make their livings bullying people, so they couldn’t let it stand. So the crazed race lady over at MSNBC told Nicki Minaj to shut up immediately.”
After sharing the clip, Minaj took to Instagram to claim Twitter has blocked her from posting more tweets because the platform didn’t like what she was saying and that she’s in “Twitter jail.”
In an Instagram livestream, Minaj blasted censorship, saying that it should give people chills “up and down your fucking spine.”
“People will isolate you if you simply speak and ask a question,” Minaj said during the live. “It’s making me think there’s something bigger to it…what in the world scared y’all that much that you disabled by fucking Twitter?”
“You should be able to ask questions about anything you’re putting inside your body,” Minaj said.
“We ask a bunch of questions about the most simple things… But you can’t just innocently ask a question about something going in your body?” she went on to say.
She compared the censorship to that of China under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party saying, “I remember going to China and they were telling us that you can’t speak out against the people in power there. I remember all of us thinking – oh OK, well we understand and we respect the laws here, and that it’s so different where we live.”
“Don’t y’all see that we are now living in that time – where people will turn their back on you” Minaj said.
