UK’s Starmer gets the Musk treatment
Elon Musk has spent the past week using his X platform to bash UK Prime Minister
Keir Starmer over his handling of far-right riots.
Starmer has so far avoided directly engaging with the billionaire, eschewing a public feud with Musk like the one Australian Premier Anthony Albanese waged with little success earlier this year.
But the role that British authorities say social media firms like X have played in fueling the widespread disorder targeting asylum seekers has exposed the UK's weak regulatory powers.
The Online Safety Act — passed into law last year — is yet to be implemented. The last government watered it down by removing a provision to regulate "legal but harmful" online content to appease free speech campaigners.
So even when it does come into force, there's concern it won't be tough enough. London Mayor Sadiq Khan has said the law isn't fit for purpose.
The UK is now considering steps to tighten the regulation of online platforms. One option is to revive that key provision, giving authorities more power to force firms to curb harmful content.
Musk and former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak during an artificial intelligence event in London last year. Photographer: Tolga Akmen/EPA/Bloomberg
Despite Starmer's call for a "mature conversation" with social media companies to limit malicious content, Musk continues to resist.
He's compared the UK to the Soviet Union and accused Britain of "two-tier policing" — a conspiracy theory with no basis in fact but fomented online that police forces treat ethnic minorities more leniently than White Britons.
Yesterday, he shared a post by the co-leader of Britain First, a far-right party, that showed a falsified news article about the UK deporting those arrested in the riots. Musk later deleted his post, but not before it was seen by millions of users.
The government is finding X to be one of the least cooperative of the major social media companies in the past week.
It's not quite the mature dialog Starmer hoped for.— Ellen Milligan
Elon Musk. Photographer: Alain Jocard/AFP/Getty Images
Starmer has so far avoided directly engaging with the billionaire, eschewing a public feud with Musk like the one Australian Premier Anthony Albanese waged with little success earlier this year.
But the role that British authorities say social media firms like X have played in fueling the widespread disorder targeting asylum seekers has exposed the UK's weak regulatory powers.
The Online Safety Act — passed into law last year — is yet to be implemented. The last government watered it down by removing a provision to regulate "legal but harmful" online content to appease free speech campaigners.
So even when it does come into force, there's concern it won't be tough enough. London Mayor Sadiq Khan has said the law isn't fit for purpose.
The UK is now considering steps to tighten the regulation of online platforms. One option is to revive that key provision, giving authorities more power to force firms to curb harmful content.
Musk and former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak during an artificial intelligence event in London last year. Photographer: Tolga Akmen/EPA/Bloomberg
Despite Starmer's call for a "mature conversation" with social media companies to limit malicious content, Musk continues to resist.
He's compared the UK to the Soviet Union and accused Britain of "two-tier policing" — a conspiracy theory with no basis in fact but fomented online that police forces treat ethnic minorities more leniently than White Britons.
Yesterday, he shared a post by the co-leader of Britain First, a far-right party, that showed a falsified news article about the UK deporting those arrested in the riots. Musk later deleted his post, but not before it was seen by millions of users.
The government is finding X to be one of the least cooperative of the major social media companies in the past week.
It's not quite the mature dialog Starmer hoped for.— Ellen Milligan
Elon Musk. Photographer: Alain Jocard/AFP/Getty Images
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