September 20, 2024

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Musk may go to the UK Parliament to answer for X social network’s role in the riots

Musk may go to the UK Parliament to answer for X social network’s role in the riots

Elon Musk may be summoned before the British Parliament over alleged role of his social network X (formerly Twitter) in fueling far-right riots in the country, reports say. A political newspaper.

Labor MPs C Onwura and Dan Butler, candidates for chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, will urge the Platform X owner and other tech company executives to answer questions about the role of social media in the growing unrest in the United Kingdom. In addition to making sure they put more pressure on Social Network X to have more transparency.

In recent days, the United Kingdom has been hit by violent far-right attacks after an Englishman, the son of immigrants, killed three children at a dance class. British lawmakers have accused social media sites, including X, of spreading misinformation about the attacker’s identity, misidentifying him as an asylum seeker who had arrived in the UK.

Christopher Furlong

Musk faced criticism after reactivating the account of activist Tommy Robinson, co-founder of the far-right English Defense League. On his account, Tammy Robinson, one of the faces of various protests, has published many anti-immigration and anti-Islam messages.

“How platform algorithms encourage and amplify the spread of misinformation and racism, and how platforms’ business models depend on this,” explained Representative C Onwura.

In response to Musk, the British deputy questioned him about “X’s role in spreading misinformation” and warned that the social network had a “responsibility not to incite racial hatred.”

Don Butler also believes that the future Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, which will be elected on September 11, “must question all the owners of social media platforms”. “It’s a very powerful foundation and we need to understand that power and make sure it’s held accountable,” he says. The British representative says that he has already reported several abusive messages on X, but receives a response that the publications do not reach the threshold required to remove them.

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Committees of public forums have the power to subpoena people and demand access to documents or records. As a last resort, the committees can only issue formal summonses to people in the United Kingdom and, failing that, can detain the person summoned for contempt of parliament.

Those in charge of technology platforms abroad managed to evade investigation. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has refused to appear after a parliamentary committee summoned him following the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The commission then threatened to issue a formal summons the next time Zuckerberg was in the country.

Musk has been criticizing the UK executive through his social media

Tensions are rising between Elon Musk and the British Parliament, with the former declaring that “civil war is inevitable” in the United Kingdom and the latter asking the owner of the X social network to take responsibility.

“I think it’s very irresponsible. I think everyone should be calm. Using language like ‘civil war’ is unacceptable in any way,” Justice Minister Heidi Alexander told Times Radio. ‘Associated Press’. “If you have a large social media platform, you also have a responsibility,” he warned.

Musk later criticized British Prime Minister Geir Starmer again by calling him a “two-tiered geezer”, referring to a conspiracy theory that the British criminal justice system is more lenient on minorities than far-right protesters. He compared the “repression” of freedom of expression on social media in the UK to that of the Soviet Union.

The British justice minister also indicated that the executive will explore the possibility of strengthening the current online protection law, which will be fully implemented by 2025. Automatic removal of some misinformation is welcome,” Heidi Alexander told the BBC television channel. “But, without a doubt, there is more that social media companies can and should do,” she recalled.

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After Musk took over the social networking site called Twitter, A study From the Pew Research Center, an American research center, shows that the number of users who identify themselves on the right of the political spectrum has increased. More than half of Republicans felt more comfortable sharing their opinions, compared to a third of Democrats.