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."
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Media Bias Fact Checker
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Media Bias Fact CheckRubberDuck
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phdepressed
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RubberDuck
in reply to phdepressed • • •dactylotheca
in reply to RubberDuck • • •Love it that you're getting downvoted for this highly controversial comment.
Proof #52895167698 that downvotes shouldn't even be a thing
RubberDuck
in reply to dactylotheca • • •Carrolade
in reply to RubberDuck • • •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
in reply to Carrolade • • •dactylotheca
in reply to RubberDuck • • •GiuseppeAndTheYeti
in reply to dactylotheca • • •dactylotheca
in reply to GiuseppeAndTheYeti • • •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.
P00ptart
in reply to dactylotheca • • •Warl0k3
in reply to MicroWave • • •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...)
Sarah Brown
in reply to Warl0k3 • •@Warl0k3 @MicroWave give you one guess where his private jet lands every time he comes through Europe …
He may want to cooperate.
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NegativeInf
in reply to Warl0k3 • • •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.
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Flying Squid
in reply to NegativeInf • • •like this
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Flying Squid
in reply to Warl0k3 • • •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.
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unexposedhazard
in reply to Flying Squid • • •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.
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Flying Squid
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The Quuuuuill
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brucethemoose
in reply to unexposedhazard • • •hungryphrog
in reply to brucethemoose • • •Warl0k3
in reply to Flying Squid • • •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
... show moreAh 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.
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The Quuuuuill
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xmunk
in reply to Warl0k3 • • •Will420
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in reply to Warl0k3 • • •mrmule
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Sir_packsalot2
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SlopppyEngineer
in reply to MicroWave • • •Optional
in reply to MicroWave • • •hungryphrog
in reply to MicroWave • • •Will420
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hungryphrog
in reply to Will420 • • •njm1314
in reply to MicroWave • • •sudo42
in reply to MicroWave • • •crapwittyname
in reply to MicroWave • • •Novman
in reply to MicroWave • • •ticklesyourinsides
in reply to Novman • • •like this
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Novman
in reply to ticklesyourinsides • • •ILikeBoobies
in reply to Novman • • •like this
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Novman
in reply to ILikeBoobies • • •ILikeBoobies
in reply to Novman • • •fellowmortal
in reply to Novman • • •Thanks for your uninformed opinion/question thing. I'll assume that you are asking in good faith and simply don't know... much about the UK.
He isn't the root cause, but he chose to insert himself by encouraging violence when he hasn't a fucking clue what he's talking about either...
UK disorder: What's Elon Musk's game?
Marianna Spring (BBC News)Novman
in reply to fellowmortal • • •symthetics
in reply to Novman • • •Lorela
in reply to Novman • • •I'm not understanding your comparison to the Troubles, because Paisley was the lead figure who fuelled the fires of religious hate through his influence, having founded a number of the groups involved in the incidents that kicked off the Troubles.
Maybe it wasn't a single speech that caused it, but he was very much the face of the loyalist movement for most of his life.
Novman
in reply to Lorela • • •Lorela
in reply to Novman • • •Paisley of course being instrumental in those 'plantations' - i just thought it weird to suggest he didn't start the Troubles, when he pretty much did.
Not to say Musk is comparable - he's not even close to the main actor here. But he is a public figure who has been using the social media platform he owns to stir up hatred against particular groups of people in the UK. And not just on this occasion, he's been chiming in for years.
Novman
in reply to Lorela • • •beefbot
in reply to MicroWave • • •Not trying to minimise this
But this also works as a test drive for what he can do in the US
nifty
in reply to MicroWave • • •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
in reply to nifty • • •Tiefling IRL
in reply to WarlordSdocy • • •Laughable
WarlordSdocy
in reply to Tiefling IRL • • •Obi
in reply to nifty • • •somenonewho
in reply to MicroWave • • •Less to the point of the article and more to it's wording:
Why the fuck do they call it "race riots" as far as I can tell there are a bunch of rioting fascists and then a broad group of people (refugees, local citizens and Antifa) trying to defend places or stop the riots. This is not a black vs white fight this fight is between fascism and anti-fascism (or at least democracy)
devnev
in reply to somenonewho • • •somenonewho
in reply to devnev • • •devnev
in reply to somenonewho • • •✺roguetrick✺
in reply to somenonewho • • •Kiernian
in reply to devnev • • •The word that's the first four letters of a country's name is that serious of an insult now?
I'm a yank so I'm pretty out of touch on this but I was under the apparently mistaken impression that it was no more serious than calling an Irishman a mick or a paddy (neither of which are awesome but don't approach the derogatory ferocity of the T- word for Roman Catholic Irish).
BluesF
in reply to Kiernian • • •SomeBloke
in reply to Kiernian • • •suction
in reply to MicroWave • • •frunch
in reply to MicroWave • • •TankovayaDiviziya
in reply to frunch • • •To those who have finished watching the first season of Squid Game, this observation is prescient.
Capitalism replaced feudalism; and the new aristocrats are the billionaires.
✺roguetrick✺
in reply to frunch • • •It's actually so much simpler than that. He's tweaked the Twitter algorithm to serve more right wing brain rot for engagement and, being a habitual user, rotted his own fucking brain more and more. He's indirectly self radicalizing. He's getting high on his own supply.
At least zuck doesn't actually use that shithole called Facebook.
Etterra
in reply to MicroWave • • •dev_null
in reply to Etterra • • •UniquesNotUseful
in reply to Etterra • • •They have some powers, they got upset at Facebook and decided to flex a bit by sending one of the boys around, to invite one of his mates for a chat.
theguardian.com/technology/201…
The person sent was the serjeant at arms. They carry a sword. Doubt they took it out but they also carry one of the House of Commons maces, which is gold covered and jewel encrusted, about 1.5m (4.9ft) long and weighs roughly 10kg (22 lbs).
Imagine some large, pissed off looking dude, dressed like he’s from the year 1415, kicking your hotel door in because you didn’t RSPV properly. Then being told hand over documents or we may stick you in jail (and you know the pretended it would be the Tower of London).
The 1,000 yard stare he must get when asked if he enjoyed London and how lovely that history must be.
Parliament seizes cache of Facebook internal papers
Carole Cadwalladr (The Guardian)abbiistabbii
in reply to MicroWave • • •InternetUser2012
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in reply to MicroWave • • •Embarrassingskidmark
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in reply to MicroWave • • •