(From left) Bunkface lead guitarist Paan, lead vocalist and guitarist Sam, and bassist Youk continue to defend their track ‘Akhir Zaman’. — Picture from Instagram/bunkfaceband

PETALING JAYA, March 11 — Various streaming platforms have removed Malaysian pop-punk band Bunkface’s track Akhir Zaman due to its homophobic content.

The song’s lyric video, which sparked controversy with the line “LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) boleh pergi mampus” (“LGBT can go die”), was removed from YouTube and Facebook last weekend for violating the platforms’ hate speech policies and community standards respectively.

Spotify followed suit and axed the single from their platform on March 9 shortly after being contacted by Malaysian LGBT portal Queer Lapis.

Queer Lapis noted that Deezer is currently reviewing Akhir Zaman for possibly violating their policies while Joox has been completely unresponsive.

Malaysian human rights activist Numan Afifi, who previously called for the removal of Akhir Zaman from YouTube for promoting homophobia and violence against LGBT people, applauded the website’s decision to take down the lyric video.

Bunkface’s homophobic song has been taken down from Youtube. 👏 pic.twitter.com/uxIme3i2xQ — Numan Afifi (@NumanAfifi) March 8, 2020

Spotify and youtube dah take down lagu bunkface. Ini adalah kemenangan ! https://t.co/uX537bpKbM — 🏳️ 🌈meinmokhtar 🏳️ 🌈 #CampurLGBT (@meinmokhtar) March 10, 2020

While Bunkface claimed in a statement that they did not intend to promote hatred with the song, many of their fans are spewing negative comments towards the LGBT community and its allies for reporting the track.

*An earlier version of the story had a quote wrongly attributed to Apple. Apple confirmed the content is no longer available on its platform. The error has since been corrected.