DISTURBED’s DAVID DRAIMAN Returns To Twitter After Claiming He Would ‘Never’ Reactivate His Account On Platform

DISTURBED frontman David Draiman has officially reactivated his Twitter account after a nearly seven-year absence.

The 48-year-old Hawaii-based rocker said of his return: “Came back to @Twitter because I was tired of watching from the sidelines for the last number of years. Yes, the world of social media is still a relative cess pool, but I figured maybe it was time to jump back in, only this time, with a hazmat suit on…lol. Too much going on in the world that I care deeply about to not share it with everyone. Too many things to call out, to both celebrate and condemn. Too much manipulation, too many people attacking one another, too much tribalism, and obnoxious virtue signaling. Too many rageaholic keyboard warriors out there using what should be, and can be, a medium that brings us together, to only make us feel more divided. Not me. Just truth, no bullshit, no troll wars. I will do my damnedest to be a light in the darkness here.”

Draiman‘s decision to reactivate his account comes seven years after he deleted his presence on Twitter and more than three years after he said that was “never returning” to the social media platform.

Back in 2018, Draiman, who once said that he spent more time on the Internet communicating with his fanbase than any other musician, told Loudwire that he was no longer able to keep in contact with his fans as much as he used to. “No, I can’t on the same level, by any means, and it’s unfortunate,” he said. “It’s also a matter of just pure numbers. Once it got to a point where I could no longer handle it in terms of sheer volume and size, it became a daunting thing — it became something that actually came between me and my wife; I spent so much time on it.”

He continued: “The water has been poisoned for quite some time as far as interaction is concerned. Social media has become a high school playground where the challenge is what idiot can come up with the best insult, and do you end up congratulating ’em for it. It’s really sad. Either that or people just pushing their own respective ideas on everyone, trying to shove everything down everybody else’s throats, and so much elitism and so much lack of camaraderie and lack of unity. It’s become a very, very ugly thing.”

Pressed about whether he had plans to one day reopen an official Twitter account, Draiman said at the time: “No, never. I’m never returning to Twitter.”

In August 2018, Draiman admitted to SiriusXM Octane that while he did not have an official presence on Twitter after he deleted his official account, he still used the platform “as a news tool. I still have a ‘shadow’ Twitter account,” he explained. “But I don’t tweet, I don’t spew anything. It’s just there for me to be able to get my news.”

Draiman had in the past battled with Twitter trolls who have harassed him about his sometimes-controversial views regarding Israel and its ongoing conflict with the Palestinians. Draiman has had frequent heated exchanges with followers on Twitter, some of whom believe that Israel is not blameless in the ongoing conflict with Palestinians.

Draiman, the son of Israelis and the grandson of Holocaust survivors, spent much of 2014 and early 2015 linking to articles by conservative and pro-Israel blogs and has often used his fame to speak out against anti-Semitism.

Last month, Draiman said that he had lost thousands of social media followers since publicizing his trip to Israel in November.

On November 30, Draiman lit a candle at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Israel at the Old City site of the terror attack that killed South African immigrant Eli Kay. He later claimed that he lost 4,000 followers after sharing photos of his “demonstration” at the Western Wall.

Although David — who has some 200 relatives living in Israel — had visited the country many times before, DISTURBED‘s July 2019 show in Tel Aviv was the band’s first performance in the Jewish state.

DISTURBED‘s song “Never Again”, from 2010’s “Asylum” album, was written about the Holocaust and calls out people who deny it.

Both of Draiman‘s maternal grandparents were survivors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, while many others on his mother’s side were wiped out by the Nazis.

The United States Holocaust Museum has featured Draiman in its “Voices On Anti-Semitism” podcasts.

In recent years, Draiman spoke out against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which calls for economic pressure on Israel to end the occupation of Palestinian land, grant Arab citizens equal rights and recognize the right of return to Palestinian refugees.

Two and a half years ago, Draiman spoke to KAN radio, where he called BDS advocates “idiots” and “Nazis in suits.”

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