Bruce Daisley calls for ‘beefed-up’ online safety laws and compares tech billionaires to unaccountable oligarchs * As an ex-Twitter boss, I have a way to grab Elon Musk’s attention. If he keeps stirring unrest, get an arrest warrant Elon Musk should face “personal sanctions” and even the threat of an “arrest warrant” if found to be stirring up public disorder on his social media platform, a former Twitter executive has said. It cannot be right that the billionaire owner of X, and other tech executives, be allowed to sow discord without personal risks, Bruce Daisley, formerly Twitter’s vice-president for Europe, Middle East and Africa, writes in the Guardian. Continue reading...

It’s easy to blame viral videos – and far harder to change the culture in which they thrive Among those swiftly convicted and sentenced last week for their part in the racist rioting was Bobby Shirbon, who had left his 18th birthday party at a bingo hall in Hartlepool to join the mob roaming the town’s streets, targeting houses thought to be occupied by asylum seekers. Shirbon was arrested for smashing windows and throwing bottles at police. He was sentenced to 20 months in prison. In custody, Shirbon had claimed that his actions had been justified by their ubiquity: “It’s OK,” he told officers, “everyone else is doing it.” That has, of course, been a consistent claim from those caught up in mass thuggery down the years, but for many of the hundreds of people now facing significant prison sentences, the “defence” has a sharper resonance. Continue reading...

PM accused of ignoring civil rights and aping autocracies as he proposes new powers after far-right unrest Civil liberties campaigners have said that a proposal made by Keir Starmer on Thursday to expand the use of live facial recognition technology would amount to the effective introduction of a national ID card system based on people’s faces. Silkie Carlo, the director of Big Brother Watch, said it was ironic the new prime minister was suggesting a greater use of facial matching on the same day that an EU-wide law largely banning real-time surveillance technology came into force. Continue reading...