*Musk has spent days beefing with politicians over the far-right unrest sweeping the UK. *

Elon Musk could be summoned for a grilling by British MPs over X’s role in race riots that have rocked the U.K. over the last week, as well as his own incendiary comments about the violence.

Labour MPs Chi Onwurah and Dawn Butler, who are competing to chair parliament’s science, innovation and technology committee, both told POLITICO they’d press the billionaire X owner and other technology executives to answer questions about the role of social media platforms amid mounting unrest in the U.K.

Musk has spent days beefing with British politicians over the riots, and is locked in a war of words with Prime Minister Keir Starmer over the U.K’s handling of them. Musk on Sunday wrote “civil war is inevitable” in the U.K. and claimed that the response by U.K. police has been “one-sided."

  • nifty@lemmy.worldEnglish
    53·
    5 months ago

    Under what law would the UK govt do this though? I am not sure it’s a great idea since Musk is a private citizen and not a government actor. Would any govt then extend this precedent to any viral comment? Like the person who made the JD Vance couch comment?

    OTOH, Musk is in a unique position because of his money and influence, that a normal commentator does not have. So I don’t know, but seems like a legal quagmire.

    If however Musk is shown to funnel money to UK PACs persons or parties via any means, then the UK govt has a case to question him as a hostile foreign operator. But otherwise it seems like a tricky scenario. Perhaps the same legalities around the Assange case extend to this? But Assange was a sympathetic figure in many respects. I am not sure Musk has the same freedom of press and speech justifications.

    • WarlordSdocy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      152·
      5 months ago

      I think it’s more over the fact that he runs the platform and therefore if his platform helped stoke the flames that caused this then it’s completely valid for him to be brought in to be questioned about his involvement and what X will do in the future to combat racism and misinformation.

        • WarlordSdocy@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5·
          5 months ago

          Yeah the answer is obviously nothing cause it’s Elon but still it’s the same type of thing when the US brings in people like Zuckerberg to talk about what their platforms are doing.

    • Obi@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      12·
      5 months ago

      Free speech in the UK does not include hate speech or inciting violence, so that’s probably all they need, doesn’t matter that he’s an individual, in fact it probably makes it much simpler since that makes it not a diplomatic issue.