*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."

  • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    3 months ago

    They should. It’s nuts this motherfucker has the influence he does. He’s an actual dipshit who’s only able to do this because he was born into money and failed upwards. He’s a moron with outsized influence. Hold him to account, please.

  • somenonewho@feddit.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    3 months ago

    Less to the point of the article and more to it’s wording:

    Why the fuck do they call it “race riots” as far as I can tell there are a bunch of rioting fascists and then a broad group of people (refugees, local citizens and Antifa) trying to defend places or stop the riots. This is not a black vs white fight this fight is between fascism and anti-fascism (or at least democracy)

    • devnev@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      3 months ago

      Why do you think it’s more fascist or than racist? The political “right” of the UK is incredibly anti-immigrant, you can see that in how they’ve voted for MPs and Brexit. The racial hate is more noticeable towards brown people, i.e. anyone looking anything from Arab to south Asian, there’s even the p-word that comes close (but isnt quite) the equivalent of the n-word.

      • somenonewho@feddit.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        3 months ago

        Sorry I didn’t mean to imply that the Nazis aren’t racist I definitely know that. For me it’s just a different framing between “There are Race riots” (i.e. riots/fights between racial identies) vs fascist/racists rioting because of their racists reasons (and people fighting them in a (self)defense way. I hope I made clear what I meant.

  • BrightCandle@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    3 months ago

    He has clearly been inciting the riots online. Treat him like all the other instigators of this and put out an arrest warrant for terrorism. He should stand in a court room and answer for his actions like everyone else, the billions shouldn’t mean he gets to talk to parliament first.

  • jaemo@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    3 months ago

    Shitheels has a fucking opinion on how to run everything it seems. Clear sign he should run nothing, since the only thing being actually run is his fucking mouth.

  • frunch@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    3 months ago

    Love how this guy’s one of the richest people in the world yet he’s got nothin better to do than fuck with the common folk. Guess he doesn’t get enough attention at home, so here we are watching him stoke racism and stupidity to entertain his pathetic insecure self

    • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      edit-2
      3 months ago

      It’s actually so much simpler than that. He’s tweaked the Twitter algorithm to serve more right wing brain rot for engagement and, being a habitual user, rotted his own fucking brain more and more. He’s indirectly self radicalizing. He’s getting high on his own supply.

      At least zuck doesn’t actually use that shithole called Facebook.

    • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      3 months ago

      Love how this guy’s one of the richest people in the world yet he’s got nothin better to do than fuck with the common folk.

      to entertain his pathetic insecure self

      To those who have finished watching the first season of Squid Game, this observation is prescient.

      Capitalism replaced feudalism; and the new aristocrats are the billionaires.

  • jprice@kbin.run
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    3 months ago

    If there’s any group that needs to be taken out, it’s the PayPal mafia of Theil and Musk.

  • njm1314@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    3 months ago

    As they should. Online grifters should be held accountable for the lives they destroy.

    • phdepressed@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      3 months ago

      “Politely” is doubtful. Same guy who told his advertisers to go fuck themselves and now is suing them for not using his platform anymore.

        • dactylotheca@suppo.fi
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          3 months ago

          Love it that you’re getting downvoted for this highly controversial comment.

          Proof #52895167698 that downvotes shouldn’t even be a thing

          • GiuseppeAndTheYeti@midwest.social
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            3 months ago

            Nah. Downvotes should exist to show how unpopular radical or extremist views really are. It doesn’t apply here obviously, but I think the reason Meta and Twitter etc. are so negative/toxic is because you can’t discourage that content on popular posts. It just looks like there’s fewer likes.

          • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            3 months ago

            Yeah… really hurtful all those negative internet points. I don’t care though. They do serve as sort of a thermometer of the comment. But in this case… it makes me smile.

  • Embarrassingskidmark@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    3 months ago

    I think we should strap Elon Musk to one of his rockets & launch him directly into the sun… Or maybe just like a big wall, that might be more entertaining.

  • Etterra@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    3 months ago

    I doubt they could do it since Musky is a US citizen. I didn’t know the laws for this kind of thing though, so maybe they could with the right kind of legalese?

    • dev_null@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      3 months ago

      I guess he can ignore a court summons, but then he can never enter the UK again, which he might want to do at some point.

    • UniquesNotUseful@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      3 months ago

      They have some powers, they got upset at Facebook and decided to flex a bit by sending one of the boys around, to invite one of his mates for a chat.

      https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/24/mps-seize-cache-facebook-internal-papers

      The person sent was the serjeant at arms. They carry a sword. Doubt they took it out but they also carry one of the House of Commons maces, which is gold covered and jewel encrusted, about 1.5m (4.9ft) long and weighs roughly 10kg (22 lbs).

      Imagine some large, pissed off looking dude, dressed like he’s from the year 1415, kicking your hotel door in because you didn’t RSPV properly. Then being told hand over documents or we may stick you in jail (and you know the pretended it would be the Tower of London).

      The 1,000 yard stare he must get when asked if he enjoyed London and how lovely that history must be.

    • Will420@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      3 months ago

      Added to the false narrative that the killer of three little girls at a Taylor Swift themed party at a holiday daycare center. Was a migrant who had just gotten off a small boat and was on an MI5/MI6 watchlist. Which has ledt to a few relatively sporadic race riots from the far right. And now saying that Civil War in the UK is inevitable.

  • nifty@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    3 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.

    • Obi@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      3 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.

    • WarlordSdocy@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      3 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.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          3 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.