Elon Musk has angered the UK government, which is urging the tech billionaire to act responsibly. The reason is that Elon Musk made several posts on his own social media platform X, which the British government believes risks fueling the ongoing riots.
It all started with Elon Musk writing on X that a “civil war is inevitable”. Musk has 193 million followers on the platform. A spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer responded that the claim was baseless.
Later, Keir Starmer wrote in a post on X that the government “does not condone attacks on mosques or Muslim groups”. Musk responded with the question: “Shouldn’t you be concerned about attacks against all groups in society?”
Elon Musk has also shared a video of a person who allegedly posted offensive comments online being arrested by the police. In the post, Musk asks the question: “Is this Great Britain or the Soviet Union?”
Spreading far-right accusations
In addition, Elon Musk has used the hashtag “#2tierkeir”. It is a direct reference to accusations spread by far-right groups about so-called “two tier policing”. The right-wing extremists believe that the police crack down harder on the white far-right demonstrators than on left-wing and Muslim protesters.
Threats to the nation’s security
Following the Southport stabbing and subsequent violent riots, the internet has been flooded with misinformation and rumours. The British authorities have collected examples of posts that they believe are a threat to the nation’s security. They have since turned to platforms like Google, Meta, Tiktok and X to get them to clean up posts with violent and inflammatory content.
But Elon Musk’s X has set up countermeasures. In addition, Elon Musk’s own posts risk further complicating the authorities’ work to put an end to the unrest.
Robinson on X
In the past, Elon Musk has been criticized for letting right-wing extremist Tommy Robinson into X at the end of last year. Robinson’s account on the platform, which was then called Twitter, was shut down in 2018. Tommy Robinson is now accused of spreading misinformation and fueling the riots.
