Seeking to combat the wave of weapons on all fronts, the mayor of New York, Eric Adams, yesterday urged social networks to ban rap videos that glorify and promote violence, such as they did with the controversial former president Donald Trump.
The mayor’s request came a day after he delivered an emotional speech at City Hall about the short life of the rapper from 18 Jayquan McKenley (Chii Wvttz), shot to death in Bedford-Stuyvesant last Sunday, the second such case in less than a week.
Previously, in January, a rapper from 16 years with a history of videos of violence, he shot a police officer in the Bronx, days before two Hispanic NYPD officers were killed in Harlem.
Adams said yesterday that he was unfamiliar with the style of rap that tends to have dark and violent themes, with lyrics that often or include killing with semi-automatic weapons, until he talked to his son, Jordan Coleman, who works at Jay-Z’s Roc-Nation. “My son sent me videos. It was alarming”, commented the mayor.
“My son sent me videos. It was alarming”
Eric Adams, Mayor of NYC
Adams, a former NYPD, added that he wants to meet with social media companies and tell them to remove rap videos from their platforms. “You have a corporate and civic responsibility,” he told them rhetorically.
As an example, Adams cited that it would be irresponsible to continue giving violent rap music videos a platform after Twitter banned the former president Donald Trump for publishing what he considered unacceptable and inflammatory content, indicated New York Post.
“We took Trump off Twitter because of what he was saying. However, we are allowing music exhibition of weapons, violence. We allow this to stay on the sites,” Adams said after an unrelated press conference. promoted by rap, which is “causing the loss of lives of young people like them.”
Facebook/Instagram and Twitter have not commented. In 72 of the 77 NYC police districts have increased crime in 2022, leaving only five zones at levels of 2021 or falling below the figures for the same period of the previous year.
After the rise of armed violence in 2020 and 2021 particularly among young gang members and/or victims, the 2022 started with the same trend, representing a great challenge for the new Adams . According to the latest figures, there were 100 shootings across the city last month, a jump from January 2021 when they registered 72. These figures also show an increase with respect to 2020 and 2019, when there was 67 and 52 acts of shooting, respectively.