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British MPs want to haul Elon Musk before parliament over riots

*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."

nifty ,
@nifty@lemmy.world avatar

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.

WarlordSdocy ,

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.

tiefling ,

what X will do in the future to combat racism and misinformation.

Laughable

WarlordSdocy ,

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.

beefbot ,

Not trying to minimise this

But this also works as a test drive for what he can do in the US

Novman ,

Not from uk, but do you really believe that one person comment or a single criminal event can cause such a mess? It is like saying the troubles were caused by a speech of ian paisley. In uk you have huge examples of revolts/wars between different populations ( irish/english/welsh/scottish ) but this time is a comment the cause… seeing from outside it seems … weird

ticklesyourinsides ,

He owns the site. The site is a shit hole of hate and it spreads lies. So yes he should be held accountable.

Novman ,

Any media spread hate against other groups/spread lies. Or you have even read any newspaper in the past 100 years. I read reddit and i read the worst things about adversarial groups any day. Sometime even war crimes apologies, a post was so terrible that could be used as a war crimes proff ( a drone targeting and killing a medical unit doing their work during wartime ). But it is very rare that this kind of speech cause some riots. Ex: never heard of democrats targeting republicans with riots in USA. The strange thing is that russians tell that usa and uk are using the social to promote colored revolutions ( and is x is between them ). So X is an instrument of CIA / MI5 or a russian asset? When the troubles erupted were more simple time.

ILikeBoobies ,

It’s not his comment but his site purveying it

Novman ,

The troubles were in a period without any social…

ILikeBoobies ,

And he wasn’t blamed for it

crapwittyname ,

DO IT YOU FUCKING COWARDS

sudo42 ,

Musk is really upping his asshole game. He’s alienated 50% of the US, a good bit of Norway and now Britain.

njm1314 ,

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

hungryphrog ,

What has that fucker done again?!

Will420 ,

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.

homesweethomeMrL ,

I was hoping they meant “keel-haul Musk” because I approve this message.

SlopppyEngineer ,

Promise the protesters you’ll squeeze rich people like Musk and his companies for all they’re worth to solve the issues with housing and NHS to start with.

jprice ,

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

intensely_human ,

saved

Sir_packsalot2 ,

If you take him there’s no returns

BrightCandle ,

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.

mrmule ,

Why not just block that whole dumpster fire https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/a52a4e23-c557-454e-a973-2a9e3898ff12.gif

Warl0k3 ,

Yeeeeah no. As much as I despise musk, the UK doesn’t get to call a US citizen into parliment, we fought a war about that one.

(So uh, just as an aside, go after his business interests. You’ll nail that fucker to the wall if you snag his UK investments. We haven’t gotten around to fighting the war against capitalism…)

goatsarah ,

@Warl0k3 @MicroWave give you one guess where his private jet lands every time he comes through Europe …

He may want to cooperate.

NegativeInf ,

Can’t they call him in due to him being the owner of the company and stoking racist riots via that companies only product in attempt to destabilize their government?

Tho I guess you really only could request it. Unless Twitter is doing actual business in the UK, which for adverts and now with the pay outs for tweeting, they probably are. But even then, one would probably only get the bootlicking CEO Yackinasackarino.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

They can call him in for having a K in his name. They could summon Vladimir Putin if they wanted. There’s no restrictions on who they can summon as far as I know.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

the UK doesn’t get to call a US citizen into parliment, we fought a war about that one.

I know American history classes suck, but I didn’t realize they sucked this badly.

Parliament can call summon anyone they like anywhere in the world. Whether or not the person they summon is required to go depends on local laws.

Believe it or not, even if the U.S. had a “you can’t summon us to parliament, so there” clause in the Constitution, the British could say “fuck your constitution” and do the summoning anyway.

unexposedhazard ,

Dude has rot in his brain like damn. Yes he can always just run away, but that wont improve his situation. If you dont answer when you are accused, the sentencing will happen without you. If the UK and EU ban twitter, he wont like that, so its in his own best interest to show up.

If you wanna do business somewhere, you will answer to the laws of that place or deal with the consequences.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Sure, I was speaking in more general terms about the bizarre claim that we fought a war to stop the UK Parliament from summoning Americans.

Quill7513 ,

I mean… That was one of our formal complaints that all criminal trials in colonial American times happened in England instead of locally before a jury of peers, but to ignore the entire legal tradition of jurisdiction and extradition to focus entirely on that is… Dumb. Even then I’m pretty sure Patrick Henry would agree if Elon Musk committed a crime in London, where he should be tried is London. The argument the thread starter is making requires ignoring what the actual formal complaints was and instead flattening it into a simplified version that basically translates to “lol england bad”

brucethemoose ,

Musk is a narcissist, so he’s probably thining the UK wouldn’t dare ban Twitter, now that he’s made it so awesome.

hungryphrog ,

and then get suprised when they ban Shitter

Warl0k3 ,

Ah hell, you make one deeply drunken joke and suddenly you’re at -25…

FWIW, the US does have a whole host of laws and various treaty clauses that dictate US citzens cant be held to account by a foreign power without either US government consent or consent of the party. Our extradition and criminal parity treaties mean that, in criminal cases, we might let a citizen be tried outside of the US, but calling a US citizen is really really difficult to pull off. Thats what I was referring to when I said “we fought a war”. The UK government cannot compel him to testify, by hundred-year-old-treaty, without US consent.

But calling a US citizen to testify in front of a foreign legislative power is 100%, by both treaty and hegemony, entirely consensual on the part of the called party. Musk can just say no, and there’s nothing that can be done without getting the buy-off from the state dpt, which… we’re an oligopoly, we’re not going to hand over a billionare.

HOWEVER the UK is entirely able to hold his business interests and investments ransom, which would be highly effective. If parliment is serious about this they’ll do that, but since I have no more faith in the UK government than my own (okay a little more, the US is in a bad place, the tories would honestly be a step up in most states) I absolutely do not expect them to go after musk in a way that even slightly might work. Which I would love to be proven wrong about, please, some government hold this asshole to account.

Quill7513 ,

There’s a difference between a request and a subpoena. Right now They’re discussing basically politely asking. If they want to subpoena him they’ll have to make an extradition request, at which point America will look over the details of the case and decide if they want to cooperate. It happens literally all the time. Sometimes we cooperate. Sometimes we don’t. Usually because Britain is our ally, we cooperate.

xmunk ,

You do realize that Musk is a citizen of two commonwealth countries (in addition to the fact that parliament can demand whatever the fuck they want - and that doesn’t necessarily mean it will happen).

Will420 ,

As a businessman with major companies operating in the UK. Who is inciting racial hatred and riots. Parliament has a right to request him to appear. I don’t believe that they can even order a UK private citizen to appear before them. Unless they’re a civil servant.

intensely_human ,

Capitalism has been fought and defeated many times. Each time it went just about as well as beating medicare.

Badeendje ,
@Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

And he will just politely decline.

phdepressed ,

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

Badeendje ,
@Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

Sarcasm does not translate well in writing… but I refuse to use /s… but yes.

dactylotheca ,
@dactylotheca@suppo.fi avatar

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

Proof that downvotes shouldn’t even be a thing

Badeendje ,
@Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

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.

Carrolade ,

Funny thing to me about downvoters is they don’t seem to realize everyone likes to look for the downvoted posts because they’re often the most amusing. There’s a reason “controversial” is one of the first few sorting options.

My hypothesis is they’re mostly the younger people on the platform, trying to rely on peer pressure like this is HS or something, because that’s all they’ve really experienced so far in their lives.

UltraMagnus0001 ,

Sells ads too

dactylotheca ,
@dactylotheca@suppo.fi avatar

Oh yeah it’s not like it makes any real difference – although the points may be fake, whether we like it or not people do seem to let them influence how they look at a comment or post. It’s just a bit silly that so many people cling to the idea that downvotes are a valuable tool (apparently we’d be overrun with nazis if we couldn’t downvote things)

GiuseppeAndTheYeti ,

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.

dactylotheca ,
@dactylotheca@suppo.fi avatar

Many Lemmy instances do just fine without them though, and unpopular extremist views are still unpopular. Frankly that sounds more like a case for moderation than downvotes.

One of the main problems I have with downvotes on Lemmy is that when people browse All, niche communities tend to attract a lot of drive-by downvotes (which is why many instances that host them opted to disable downvotes) that tend to drown out votes by people who are actually in those communities and push the content lower when using a sort that takes votes into account.

Yes there’s all sorts of lofty ideas about how downvotes should be used, and eg people are not “supposed” to downvote things just because they disagree (and no I’m not talking nazism here). Never goes that way in real life.

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