What does it take to get tossed off of Twitter in the Elon Musk era? We just found out.

In the middle of either a moral or mental breakdown, and possibly both, Kanye “Ye” West has launched an orgy of anti-Semitic commentary of late, even making Alex Jones look rational by comparison. That cost West a chance to buy his own social media platform in Parler, as David noted yesterday, whose current owners thought better of the sale in the immediate aftermath.

Now Musk has also booted West from Twitter, thanks to West’s recent (?) compulsive need to obsess over the Jooooooos in every phase of his life:

After making antisemitic comments and praising Hitler on Thursday, the rapper Ye has been suspended from Twitter.

The account for Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, read as “account suspended” early Friday. …

Ye’s suspension comes around a month after the multibillionaire Musk, who has described himself as a “free speech absolutist,” bought Twitter for $44 billion.

That’s not entirely what Musk said, however. Musk said he leaned in that direction, but also has repeatedly said that some content moderation would be necessary to keep Twitter in operation. Musk wanted to align that moderation along First Amendment lines as much as possible, and pledged to remove ideological content moderation and viewpoint censorship to the degree possible. Spam, threats of violence, and real hatred would get blocked, Musk has repeatedly promised.

Looks like he made good on that promise. Musk explained the move in a series of tweets, and clarified that the decision had nothing to do with an unflattering picture of Musk than West apparently tweeted as a criticism:

The swastika tweet was part of a series of posts that included praise for Balenciaga, the French luxury brand that terminated its professional relationship with Ye in October because of his antisemitic comments. Balanciaga, which had partnered with Ye on runway shows and other fashion projects, has recently faced its own controversy in the form of allegations that it condoned child exploitation.

Before his suspension, Ye had also tweeted an unflattering photograph of Mr. Musk being hosed down on a yacht.

“This is fine,” Mr. Musk tweeted in response to the image. “This is not,” he wrote in regard to the swastika post, confirming Ye’s suspension.

I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 2, 2022

Just clarifying that his account is being suspended for incitement to violence, not an unflattering pic of me being hosed by Ari.

Frankly, I found those pics to be helpful motivation to lose weight!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 2, 2022

Ironically, West may have just done Musk a huge favor. Advertisers have been balking at returning to the platform in what they assumed would be a cesspool of unmoderated postings. By kicking off one of the most prominent hip-hop celebrities in the world for hate speech and incitement, Musk made it pretty clear that rules will still apply on Twitter. Advertisers may still want more viewpoint censorship before coming back, but now they’ll have to make that argument more explicit and risk raising the ire of their rank-and-file customers.

And what of West himself? Unfortunately, his celebrity is too ingrained for him to be completely marginalized, but his toxicity is now entirely apparent. It has been for years, however, as has his instability and reckless nature. Politicians should have been keeping their distance from West long before now, and those who didn’t have demonstrated serious judgment issues at the very least — judgment issues which should be considered very carefully by voters in any upcoming election cycles.

One final question, however: where is West’s family and real friends? Why aren’t they getting him the help he clearly and desperately needs? This is a man who needs mental health care much more than a public platform of any kind, and it’s not tough to see the potential for tragedy ahead. Maybe Musk’s doing West a favor by denying him access to a prominent social-media platform, too.