Earlier this week, Azealia Banks aimed a string of racist tweets at Zayn Malik. Subsequently, Rinse FM dropped her from the lineup of its Born & Bred festival. "We have decided to cancel Azealia Banks’ headline appearance," the festival noted on Instagram. "Rinse is a celebration of rave culture and has been created for EVERYONE. We celebrate inclusivity and equality."
Today it appears that Twitter may have stepped in and suspended the rapper's account.
When asked for comment about it, a rep from Twitter declined to comment, because the company “do[es] not comment on individual accounts, for privacy and security reasons.” But as Twitter’s help section explains, the company will temporarily or permanently shut down an account if an account that has been flagged for abuse by another user is found to "engage in abusive behavior, like sending threats to others or impersonating other accounts." It's worth noting that Twitter has always struggled to have clear and fast rules on what constitutes harassment and has been historically criticized for not doing enough to help women who get harassed on its platform.