UK MPs will reportedly summon Elon Musk over X’s role in summer riots, as well as executives from TikTok and Meta
A number of executives from high profile social networking platforms are to be summoned to appear before a UK parliamentary inquiry into their role over disinformation and harmful content and the summer riots.
The Guardian learned that besides executives from Meta and TikTok, MPs are also going to summon Elon Musk to testify about X’s role in spreading disinformation.
It comers after the Italian President Sergio Mattarella last week rebuked Elon Musk, after he had tweeted on X (formerly Twitter) about Italian court rulings that had stymied Italy’s right wing government plans to process some asylum-seekers in Albania.
Musk summoned?
The Guardian had last week announced it was joining the migration away from X and was withdrawing from the Elon Musk platform.
Now the newspaper reported that British MPs are to summon Elon Musk to testify about X’s role in spreading disinformation, in a parliamentary inquiry into the UK riots and the rise of false and harmful AI content.
Musk, as well as senior executives from Meta and TikTok are expected to be called for questioning as part of a Commons science and technology select committee social media inquiry.
However it seems unlikely that senior figures such as Musk or Mark Zuckerberg will actually appear.
Parliamentary inquiry
The first hearings will reportedly take place in the new year, and the MPs will investigate the consequences of generative AI, which was used in widely shared images posted on Facebook and X inciting people to join Islamophobic protests after the killing of three schoolgirls in Southport in August.
The Guardian reported that they will also investigate Silicon Valley business models that “encourage the spread of content that can mislead and harm”.
“[Musk] has very strong views on multiple aspects of this,” Chi Onwurah, the Labour chair of the select committee was quoted as saying. “I would certainly like the opportunity to cross-examine him to see … how he reconciles his promotion of freedom of expression with his promotion of pure disinformation.”
Onwurah reportedly said the inquiry would attempt to “get to the bottom of the links between social media algorithms, generative AI, and the spread of harmful or false content”.
Musk had fumed when he was not invited to a UK government international investment summit in September. Onwurah however reportedly told the Guardian: “I’d like to make up for that by inviting him to attend.”
X reportedly did not respond when asked by the Guardian if Musk would testify in the UK.
Last week Donald Trump had appointed both Elon Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to head up an advisory group called the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), which seeks to cut at least $2 trillion from the US federal budget and reduce official regulation.
Musk clashes
Elon Musk has been repeatedly cited by national leaders over his inflammatory tweets.
Earlier this year Musk was publicly rebuked by the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, after Musk had accused Australia of censorship following an Australian judge who had ordered X (as well as Meta Platforms) to block users worldwide from accessing video of a bishop being stabbed in a Sydney church.
Musk at the time tweeted from his personal account that “the Australian censorship commissar is demanding *global* content bans!”
But Prime Minister Albanese berated Musk in several television interviews, describing Musk as an “arrogant billionaire” who considered himself above the law and was out of touch with the public.
Elon Musk also earned the ire of the British government due to his inflammatory social media posts during riots across the country in July and August.
Musk compared the UK to the Soviet Union and tweeted about the alleged two tier British criminal justice system, which he cast as treating Muslims more leniently than far-right activists.
Elon Musk also repeatedly insulted UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, and claimed that “civil war is inevitable”.
Musk later shared a fake news post from a far right organisation, about deporting rioters to the Falkland Islands, before he hurriedly deleted it without apologising – an action Musk has done previously when he was caught out promoting conspiracy theories.
Musk has also clashed with a Brazilian supreme court justice over free speech, far-right accounts and purported misinformation on X, which led to X being banned in the country until Musk backed down.
