Why Elon Musk’s week of stirring unrest shows the limits of online safety laws

Twitter under the tech owner has become the perfect test case for the UK’s new legislation – but critics say more needs to be done

• Don’t get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the full article here

What can the UK government do about Twitter? What should it do about Twitter? And what does Elon Musk even care?

The multibillionaire owner of the social network, still officially branded as X, has had a fun week stirring up unrest on his platform. Aside from his own posts, a mixture of low-effort memes that look as if they’re lifted straight from 8chan and faux-concerned reposts of far-right personalities, the platform at large briefly became a crucial part of the organisation of the disorder – alongside the other two of the three Ts: TikTok and Telegram.

In the short term, Musk and fellow executives should be reminded of their criminal liability for their actions under existing laws. Britain’s Online Safety Act 2023 should be beefed up with immediate effect. Prime minister Keir Starmer and his team should reflect if Ofcom – the media regulator that seems to be continuously challenged by the output and behaviour of outfits such as GB News – is fit to deal with the blurringly fast actions of the likes of Musk. In my experience, that threat of personal sanction is much more effective on executives than the risk of corporate fines. Were Musk to continue stirring up unrest, an arrest warrant for him might produce fireworks from his fingertips, but as an international jet-setter it would have the effect of focusing his mind.

‘I think very swiftly the government has realised there needs to be amendments to the Online Safety Act,’ Khan said in an interview with the Guardian. ‘I think what the government should do very quickly is check if it is fit for purpose. I think it’s not fit for purpose.’

Khan said there were ‘things that could be done by responsible social media platforms’ but added: ‘If they don’t sort their own house out, regulation is coming.’

If we just look at the act alone, Ofcom has the power to regulate online media content because section 232 says a “television licensable content service” includes distribution ‘by any means involving the use of an electronic communications network’. Ofcom could choose to assert its powers. Yet this is highly unlikely because Ofcom knows it would face challenge from the tech companies, including those fuelling riots and conspiracy theories.

There is no difference, for example, between Elon Musk putting out videos on X about (so called) two-tier policing, or posts on ‘detainment camps’, or that ‘civil war is inevitable’, and ITV or Sky or the BBC broadcasting news stories … The Online Safety Act is completely inadequate, since it only is written to stop ‘illegal’ content, which does not by itself include statements that are wrong, or even dangerous.