A British government minister condemned American tech billionaire Elon Musk on Tuesday for making “unacceptable” social media comments regarding far-right rioting in England and Northern Ireland.
The proprietor of X faced criticism after stating on the site on Sunday that a British “civil war” was unavoidable. He generated even more outrage on Monday when he responded provocatively to a tweet by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
“Use of language such as a ‘civil war’ is in no way acceptable,” said justice minister Heidi Alexander, branding Musk’s comments “deeply irresponsible”.
“We are seeing police officers being seriously injured, buildings set alight, and so I really do think that everyone who has a platform should be exercising their power responsibly,” she told Times Radio.
Riots by anti-immigrant demonstrators erupted across England following the murder of three children at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party in Southport, northwest England, last Monday.
They were fueled by online misinformation claiming that the stabbing suspect was a Muslim asylum seeker. Axel Rudakubana, 17, was born in Britain.
Rioters have targeted mosques and hotels that house asylum seekers, prompting the government to offer emergency security to Islamic places of worship.
In a post on X on Monday, Starmer vowed to apply “criminal law online as well as offline”, adding that “we will not tolerate attacks on mosques or on Muslim communities”.
Musk replied: “Shouldn’t you be concerned about attacks on *all* communities?”
‘No justification’
His original “civil war” message was in response to another X user who blamed the rioting on “the effects of mass migration and open borders”.
Starmer’s spokeswoman stated on Monday that there was “no justification” for the comment.
Influencer Andrew Tate and far-right, anti-Islam leader Tommy Robinson are among those spreading fake information about Rudakubana on X.
Starmer’s representative also accused “bot activity online,” implying that the false rumours were “amplified with the involvement of state actors.”
EuropeInvasion, an anti-immigrant X account with hundreds of thousands of followers, still keeps a post up erroneously saying that the attacker was “confirmed to be Muslim”.
An AI-generated image of Muslim guys chasing a youngster carrying a British flag has received over 900,000 views.
On Monday, technology minister Peter Kyle met with executives from TikTok, Meta, Google, and X, warning that social media users promoting misinformation will have “nowhere to hide”.
Musk — who has lowered content moderation on Twitter since taking charge, instead relying on user-written “community notes” — frequently expresses support for right-wing causes and politicians such as Donald Trump in the United States and Javier Milei in Argentina.