12 August 2024 , 20:12
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MPs leaving platform or scaling back use over its ‘deterioration’ under Elon Musk’s ownership
Labour MPs have begun quitting X in alarm over the platform, with one saying Elon Musk had turned it into “a megaphone for foreign adversaries and far-right fringe groups”.
Over the weekend, newly elected MPs took to WhatsApp groups to raise growing concerns about the role X played in the spread of misinformation amid the far-right-led riots in parts of England and Northern Ireland.
Two Labour MPs, Samantha Niblett and Noah Law, told colleagues they were leaving the platform. Law has disabled his account. Other MPs who still use X have begun examining alternatives, including Threads, which is owned by Facebook’s parent company, Meta, and the open-source platform Bluesky.
Musk, who bought Twitter in 2022 and renamed it X, has been embroiled in a public spat with Keir Starmer since the tech billionaire suggested that the riots meant “civil war is inevitable” in the UK. Musk has been criticised for failing to crack down on misinformation on the platform and for sharing fake news himself.
In an article for the Guardian on Monday, a former Twitter executive, Bruce Daisley, said Musk should face personal sanctions and even an arrest warrant if he continues to stir up public disorder online.
Over the weekend, Jess Phillips, a Home Office minister who has more than 700,000 followers on X, said she wanted to scale back her use of the platform as it had become a “bit despotic” and was “a place of misery now”.
A government minister also told the Guardian they had reduced their posts on X over the summer and that Musk’s actions had made them “very reluctant to return”.
Musk – who has cast himself as a proponent of free speech, reinstating to X figures including Donald Trump and the far-right activist Tommy Robinson – is due to conduct an interview with Trump on X on Monday night .
Josh Simons, the Labour MP for Makerfield, said he was looking into alternative platforms such as Bluesky. “What matters about Musk is not only what he said, but how he changed X’s algorithms,” he said. “He’s turned X into a megaphone for foreign adversaries and far-right fringe groups seeking to corrupt our public sphere. Nobody should have that power.
“A new generation of legislators are flexing their muscles, people who’ve grown up understanding the power of these platforms. By talking down Britain, Musk has placed X firmly in our sights.”
Lewis Atkinson, the Labour MP for Sunderland Central, has begun collating a list of MPs from his party who use Threads and said that “any platform that has lots of hate and disinformation is not very appealing to use”.
“I’ve noticed in recent weeks some people moving away from X because of their experiences there, so I’ve expanded where I’m posting to include some X alternatives – Threads and BlueSky,” he said.
“I’ve been pleased to find others I know there, including other Labour MPs; by my count 28 now using Threads. Using multiple platforms gives constituents and journalists a choice of what they use. I don’t plan to quit X, but I don’t see why it (or any platform) should have a monopoly on politicians posting.”
Jo Platt, the Labour MP for Leigh, quit X before the general election after witnessing the “deterioration” of the platform and is now a Threads user.
“I used to love it. I was on it since 2009,” Platt said. “That deterioration of it has just happened quite quickly over the past few years and even more so now.” She cited “the misinformation and disinformation that you see on there, without it being challenged, and you know that it’s not going to be removed”.
Far right-led unrest was whipped up by activists online who falsely claimed that a Muslim asylum-seeker was behind a stabbing attack that left three children dead in Southport two weeks ago.
On Monday, Downing Street indicated that social media companies could face stronger regulation if they failed to take robust action against disinformation on their platforms. Peter Kyle, the technology secretary, met social media executives last week and another meeting is expected this week.
“We’re very clear that social media companies have a responsibility for ensuring that there is no safe place for hatred and illegality on their platforms,” the prime minister’s spokesperson said.
“Our immediate response has been responding to the disorder and working with police. But as [Starmer] said last week, he does agree that we’re going to need to look more broadly at social media after this disorder.”
She said ministers were focused on implementing the Online Safety Act as soon as possible.
On Monday, in response to a post by the rightwing Reform party leader, Nigel Farage, saying: “Keir Starmer poses the biggest threat to free speech we’ve seen in our history,” Musk replied: “True.”
The prime minister’s spokesperson said he would “disagree with that completely”, but stressed that Starmer would not enter a tit-for-tat spat with Musk.
In a string of posts over the past fortnight, Musk has repeatedly attacked the UK government, police and justice system. He has used the hashtag TwoTierKeir – a reference to allegations that police have treated some protesters more harshly than others – and has described the prison sentences handed to two far-right rioters as “messed up”.
But the prime minister’s spokesperson said the government had no plans to review its use of X and said: “With all of our communications, it’s important to make sure that we reach the broadest possible audience, and that is one of a number of channels that we use to ensure that we’re doing that.”