Controversial track praising Adolf Hitler attracts numerous views on platform X, while other platforms grapple with taking it down

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Streaming platforms scramble as Kanye West's new song, "Heil Hitler," continues to spread like wildfire across the web, amassing millions of views on various platforms including Elon Musk's X.

In the digital realm this week, the formerly known Kanye West, now known as Ye, manages to share his latest creation, a song titled "Heil Hitler," as well as its counterpart, "WW3," which glorifies Hitler, the architect of the Holocaust.

While some platforms strive to pull down the openly offensive track, others have seemingly allowed it to disseminate freely.

The propagation of the song serves as an unsettling testament to the fragmented online landscape and social media, where boundaries for content moderation have become increasingly murky. Some platforms have loosened their moderation strategies in recent years, while others strive to uphold higher standards concerning hate speech.

On Elon Musk's X, the song has found its most significant audience.

On Thursday, Ye uploaded the music video for "Heil Hitler" on X, where it remained online as of Friday evening and garnered over 6.5 million views. Around 12,000 users, along with several right-wing influencers, quickly shared the clip on their pages. One notable post features the repost of a video in which historical clips of Hitler are spliced together with Ye's song as a backing track. Another video of influencer Andrew Tate - a self-proclaimed misogynist - playing the track in his car has risen to over 3 million views.

Ye's account on X is verified as an organization, potentially making it eligible for monetization and ads. It remains unclear whether Ye takes advantage of these features.

The song's widespread proliferation, even with its blatant praises of Hitler, highlights the troubling power social media platforms have handed to some celebrity influencers and their inability or unwillingness to control the distribution of objectionable content after it's released. Although Ye didn't seem to attempt to upload the song to other social media platforms, others have reposted the clip.

On Facebook, NBC News discovered over a dozen reuploads of the "Heil Hitler" music video, while on YouTube half a dozen reuploads of the song racked up hundreds of thousands of views. On TikTok, multiple reuploads have been published using the hashtag #hh.

X, Meta, TikTok, and YouTube all publicize hate speech or hateful conduct policies that typically forbid speech targeted at a specific race or hateful invocations of genocide. X and Meta did not respond to requests for comment. A YouTube spokesperson acknowledged, "We removed the content and will continue to take down reuploads," noting that any accounts associated with Ye are ineligible for monetization.

Additional insights:

Elon Musk's X, under its current policy, has been criticized for being overly permissive towards hate speech and controversial content, including anti-Semitic and extremist expressions. This lenient stance has earned X the reputation of becoming a haven for right-wing and extremist voices.
The EU has initiated significant penalties against X for failing to curb hate speech and disinformation, posing a significant challenge to Elon Musk's content approach. The potential penalties include hefty fines and demands for operational changes, but Musk has publicly contested the regulatory findings as censorship.

In other news, Ye's song appeared briefly on popular music streaming services Spotify and SoundCloud, but was eventually removed. Despite the song's removal, some users circumvented the platform's policies by uploading it to Spotify's podcast section or creating cover versions of the track. SoundCloud appeared to remove versions of the song linked to by Ye on his X account, but NBC News identified 27 reuploads or remixed versions of the song on the platform.

On Friday, Ye announced on X that he had found a new music streaming platform for his song called Scrybe, linking to a website with download pages for the app on Google's and Apple's app stores. Scrybe markets itself as catering to independent musicians, with the tagline, "More Money for the Artist, Less Money for the Fan."

Scrybe did not respond to a request for comment regarding the allegations of ease in distributing offensive material on the platform.

Kanye West, now known as Ye, has faced controversy with his newest release, "Heil Hitler," a song that glorifies Hitler, the architect of the Holocaust, on social-media platform, Elon Musk's X.
The propagation of the song on social media has been perplexing, with some platforms attempting to pull down the offensive track, while others, like X, have allowed it to proliferate freely.
Among the social media influencers who reposted the controversial music video are Andrew Tate, a self-proclaimed misogynist, and several right-wing influencers, raising concerns about the spread of hate speech in pop-culture and entertainment.
Despite the offensive nature of the song and its blatant praises of Hitler, the song has managed to gain widespread views across various social media platforms, highlighting the challenges in moderating and controlling the distribution of objectionable content.
In an attempt to circumvent the strict moderation policies of streaming platforms like Spotify and SoundCloud, enthusiasts have uploaded "Heil Hitler" in different formats, such as podcasts and cover versions, demonstrating a concerning disregard for established social and pop-culture standards.