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Happening today beneath the surface
Elon Musk’s war with UK deepens
Musk has attacked what he views as the UK's censorious Government. Credit: Bloomberg via Getty
Happening today beneath the surface
Musk has attacked what he views as the UK's censorious Government. Credit: Bloomberg via Getty
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SubscribeThis is theatre.
Musk is unable to protect your free speech against the EU DSA or our Online Safety Act. He lost against the EU and he will lose against Starmer. It was written in stone from the day those acts were passed.
The problem is if you are a billionaire owner of a massively influential social media platform and you post incendiary rubbish you do indeed endanger some limits to free speech. With power comes responsibility.
Who gets to arbitrate the definition of “incendiary rubbish.” I’ve heard very few sentences ever muttered by a socialist that didn’t qualify as either incendiary, rubbish or a combination of both. So since we’re deciding who to silence, should all Socialists be banned from speaking or just the Rich ones?
All. Definitely. Send them to the Falklands.
Every year a certain New York hedge fund billionaire spends hundreds of millions of dollars meddling in our politics via a bunch of corrupt NGOs. That’s a far bigger danger than Elon’s p1ss taking.
Musk doesn’t like fascists. Watching the video of that police fascist in a suit on sky news, the threats rolling off his tongue so confidently, is so repulsive.
Well done Elon. Please carry on the good fight.
Musk has a God complex.
If he puts his G_d complex to good use, who am i to look a gift horse in the mouth.
He has a vast platform to make his voice heard.
We need more Musk-sized entities to put their voices out in the public discourse.
Or he is defending our God given right to freedom. Our God given rights trump state power and even democracy.
Not the UK. The current UK government. And mostly he’s not been far wrong.
Except perhaps for his claim the rioters being packed off to Falkland islands?
I note you covered yourself with ‘mostly’. Even his defenders know he’s a prat when it comes to his public utterances.
You have something in common then
Except Musk has a sense of humour.
Musk is a joker. Like Trump. I suspect that’s the real reason why all you Roundheads hate them so much. Never mind, your new Lord Protector will deal with them in short order.
Musk was completely irresponsible with his comments on civil war…but went close to the bone with the ones on two-tier policing. I don’t think it’s contentious at all to say that policing in the UK needs reassessing in the aftermath of these riots, and the publicity Musk created with his posts mean more pressure on British state institutions to properly explain themselves. Which so far isn’t going so well…community leaders being involved with decisions on policing, hmm, not sure what to make of that…
At the end of the day, Elon shoots off these missives and gets stuck into these issues for the same reason he fires rockets into space: because he can.
Musk’s civil war comment might have been irresponsible but it was also true. Unless Govt policy changes radically civil war is inevitable.
Oh please. For whatever reason, over the last 10 years, I keep hearing this shit. Just like “democracy hangs in the balance” every election cycle now. Stop trying to speak this crap into existence. It’s hyperbole, and people just eat it up.
Musk’s claim that the UK is likely to have a civil war is ignorant.
As has been pointed out by others, a civil war requires the existence of two or more sets of elites who are opposed to each other. As in the King and Parliament in the English Civil War. Today, the elite is not divided in that way.
Regrettably, you’re quite right; there is no elite that cares for or speaks for the ordinary man.
Nigel Farage?
There are many other powerful people who are quiet due to fear of the mob. Just as there are many middle class people who will follow them. There certainly are many in the military who are sick of totalitarian progressives.
Not the UK. The current UK government. And he’s largely right.
Musk is spot on, what the hell happened to free speech.
OK. What did happen to free speech? Lets hear you explain how your hero, a racist scumbag, has saved free speech.
This should be funny..
Here it comes. The toddler hissy fit right on cue.
Churchill is considered a racist scumbag by many on the left and he saved Western Civilization. Musk is a brilliant man with flaws. Another true champion of freedom.
seen this account a few times now and I’m 90% sure its a bot. if not I’m 95% sure its a troll
War with the UK? What everyone? Do you mean Keir and our so called government? We are in perilous times, arresting people for speech? Unless it is calling for violence and arms, but if its calling for revolution against the government or highlighting unhappy with governments deal with high levels of immigration then i say in a free society they can say what they want. Unless we are now is fascism and will those who support the opposite simply agree because it fits their view point, mmm this is seems familiar story from history that we have heard before!
The country is already split. Half of Britaina want to live in a bizarre world of drag queen’s and imams all twerking at children together. The other half want to live like (post) Christians where men are men, women are women, kids are innocent, and religious extremism is shouting ‘Jesus saves’ through a megaphone.
If it does come down to civil war, I wonder which side the armed forces will take?
You make a solid point. Progressives are creating an unliveable society for many. Revolutions arise from such conditions.
What a bizarrely nonsensical headline. Musk is supporting the UK. It is the UK government and various institutions who are at war with the citizenry of the UK and with Elon Musk.
Why don’t you tell us how Musk amplifying completely false claims is “supporting the UK”?
This should be good!
Musk’s public humiliation gathers speed!
His commitment to “free speech” amounts to nothing more than providing a platform for the worst scum in humanity to spread their lies and put innocent lives in danger.
I’m just tired of hearing about Elon musk all the time, not a day goes by without him appearing in the news or on social media several times. It’s what you get when you have a a deeply insecure billionaire who’s obsessed with status and fame, and desperately needs to be the center of attention and has the money and resources to make it happen. Combined with a cult of followers who go to greats length to make him be seen as well as a desperate media environment run by parties who want clickbait and advertising revenue. He also often comments on whatever issue happens to be trending at the given moment not because he cares about them, but sees them as an opportunity to promote himself and get attention. Resulting in him often looking silly because he often doesn’t know much about the topics or doesn’t care about them. A lot of people are suffering from Elon fatigue because of all this.
Such a bad guy, liking democracy and freedom of speech. What a travesty.
You think Elon musk is doing these things he’s doing for the sake of democracy and freedom out of some selfless act of altruism, Total nonsense and he’s doing it for himself. I don’t get why people think he’s some kind of anti-elite Messiah, He’s a tech billionaire, He’s a member of the elite and that portion of the elite is known for their greediness and selfishness and are responsible for much of the problem that the world’s going through right now. I think the reason why behaves the way he does is a combination of personal resentment, poor impulse control and a lack of social intelligence. The hero worship around this guy is ridiculous and pure copium so people don’t have to face a unpleasant reality about people of his class, also arent people on the right supposed to be suspicious of human nature and distrustful of too much concentrations of power in two few individuals? It just amazes that he has so many fanboys on the right despite never really doing much of substance politically beyond rhetoric.
I think Musk really just enjoys the scrum of conflicting political philosophies so he has provided a “no holds barred” forum for that. X is the ultimate mud-pit for free speech where anything goes.
I am amused by the fact that Musk is suing advertisers for not advertising on X.
I believe he’s suing them for collusion.
Well yes, but colluding to not advertise on X.
I have always though if I was the producer of the James Bond films, I would create a character based on Musk to be the “Bond Villain”.
That’s funny.
It would work though. Musk, is creepy, says weird things, and has spaceships.
People like Musk because he triggers just this kind of self important pomposity. Both he and Trump have a brilliant knack of getting the ‘be kind’ people to reveal themselves in their true colours.
He has a stated ambition to put a computer chip – one that he owns or controls – into everyone’s brain. He says it’s for the greater good. He thinks, or at least he says he thinks, it’s possible to do that, at very large scale, within 10 or 15 years. There is a strain of the atheistic, libertarian, atomistic right which embraces such transhumanist, utopian, masonic cultishness and some see him as a saviour figure. Everyone else, especially genuine conservatives, should avoid such deceptive idolatry like the plague. In their greed they will exploit you with false words.
The type of people attracted to that type of politics tend to be quite immature, extremely self-absorbed types who have pathological hatred to all authority save for their own. They also tend to hypocritical and treat everyone around them badly and are very insecure. They hold other to their standards but never themselves. The reason why they care about freedom in not because of some deeply held principal but a selfish desire to free themselves from all responsibility and obligation to their fellow man and do what ever they please to anyone and anything they want without section. Its not about your freedom its about theirs, its quite same desire you see from people on the intersectional left but from a different ideological angle. Elon and his ilk are right in the abstract about censorship and government power, but there reasons are selfish. They are anarchists with cheque books.
I think he’s saying he wants to replace apple. So do you think cell phones are good or bad? And thanks for the warning and pointers on what to think.
Doesn’t matter why he is doing it. What matters is that he is doing it the way he is. Motive is wholly irrelevant.
Allowing as free of speech as he can is what he can do for democracy. Without people talking there is no democracy, so you tell me what he is based on what he’s done.
Musk has all the hallmarks of someone who was bullied as a child, and who wants to get back at the world as a result.
Yes, Bond has become such a humourless bore we really need the bad guy to win next time.
Not just bullied at school, but abused by his father and its documented. When he went to a hospital after being beat up, his father chewed him out and called him stupid and useless. That alone tells why he is the way he is, like father like son.
I didn’t know about the “father” but, but the “bullied at school” thing stands out like dogs’ balls (as we say in Australia).
If you come across Musk all the time – and don’t like it – I suggest you widen your choice of media.
Funny thing. I’m getting tired of views like yours.
Why do conservatives choose to worship such oddballs? Trump, this clown, Vance? Is the weirdness part of the attraction?
Weird is in the eye of the beholder. Me I find progressives weird with their magical belief that men can become women at will, cross dressers are just the right people to read to children and that high taxation stimulates useful enterprise. Weird that authoritarians think they are liberal.
Why are you people obsessed with sex? If you aren’t worrying constantly about other people’s gender then you are trying to make sure that women don’t have access to reproductive health or who is getting married to whom. So weird!
But then you still think that drag queens are a major threat to society but Catholic priests can be left to mind the kids, don’t you? Or that comically ineffective voodoo economics will grow the economy instead of just further enriching the already rich.
Weird? Definitely. Stupid? Yup!
Eh? It is the weirdly unhinged left who is constantly obsessed with genitalia and sexuality. The sane rest of us handles the matter on the level where it belongs to: within the privacy of one’s underwear, bedroom and mind. NOT in the public realm. Private parts & predilections are private, and called as such for a reason.
As for the “rich”: i much prefer their wealth kept out of the consumption cycle squirrelled away on some offshore tax heaven than shared it out among the 3rdworld global lumpenproletariat. Obscene thirdworld overpopulation is already wrecking the planet. Now imagine if their consuming capacity was boosted.
Conservatives literally never shut up about your overwhelming phobias about sex and gender! You are completely obsessed about the fact that someone somewhere is having a good time and you need to put a stop to it right now!!!
I’ll just ignore your racist word salad about the rich. Suffice to say, I doubt that worrying about what to do with your wealth is something you’ll ever have to do…
Au contraire, dear. I’m having a jolly fine time on this balmy evening amongst the green rolling hills of the Cotswolds and you are the one screeching about it like a demented fishwife.
Seems more like you are sitting in a darkened basement just waiting for my next bon mot and obsessing about trans people!
Have fun with that, cherie!
No cigar dear, not even close. Sitting in the garden, soaking my foot in the fountain. But nevermind.
I have zero problem with the transblokes. In fact i quite like them – they tend to piss off all the feminists. Being a woman i dislike feminists with a particular disgust. Also, those men in frocks are much easier on the eye than the stereotypical female leftist.
We like them because they wind up pompous leftists and the resulting toddler hissy fits are hilarious to watch.
You must have enjoyed the tantrum from Mar A Lago yesterday then! The Trump meltdown is highly amusing!
If you substitute “Christians” for “Leftists”, that’s the exact reason I support the LGBTQI community (well, that and the fact that I believe in individual freedom).
None as weird as insisting that blokes have cervixes. Or that the gazan terrorist community are somehow “victims”. Etc.
I see you received your copy of this season’s buzzword directive from the Guardian. They are giggling about this “weird” soundbite since weeks by now, like a cognitively underprivileged toddler watching the teletubbies for the first time in her life.
No doubt you turn to a fat orange man in an ill-fitting suit for more sophisticated wit?!?!?
Are you fat and orange? You never fail at the rejoinders.
Eh? Are you american or something?
For sophisticated wit, Stephen Fry is whom i tend to turn to.
How old are you?!?!
Stephen Fry may have been mildly amusing 40 years ago. Just another old duffer now. Much like you I suspect! Explains a lot!
That was a somewhat circumspect way to admit that you’re a thick-as-pigsh¡t dumb prole.
Ah, all becomes clear! You are the kind of person who think that Stephen Fry is the absolute peak of sophisticated wit because you don’t know any better! An MCC tie and a posh accent is enough for the likes of you!
A classical education may been of some benefit to you. Too late now, alas!
Are you busy googling MCC?
Nah.
You lot are like clockwork.
You don’t know what the MCC is, do you?
Priceless!
Eh? His accent is perfectly ordinary, just like mine. And i’m not even English. If that’s “posh” for you, i shudder to imagine the squelch emanating from your mouthhole.
Articulacy isn’t really your thing, is it?
You wouldn’t know articulacy if it slapped you on your primitive bolshevik forehead.
The thing I like most about UnHerd is that the discourse is allowed to occasionally deviate slightly from the genteel without being shut down by an overzealous mod.
Stop confusing the UK with the UK government which was voted in by around 20 per cent of the electorate .