Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter, I and many others have been looking for alternatives. Who wants to share a platform with the likes of Andrew Tate and Tommy Robinson? I considered leaving Twitter as soon as Elon Musk acquired it in 2022, just not wanting to be part of a community that could be bought, least of all by a man like him – the obnoxious “long hours at a high intensity” bullying of his staff began immediately. But I’ve had some of the most interesting conversations of my life on there, both randomly, ambling about, and solicited, for stories: “Anyone got catastrophically lonely during Covid?”; “Anyone hooked up with their secondary school boy/girlfriend?” We used to call it the place where you told the truth to strangers (Facebook was where you lied to your friends), and that wide-openness was reciprocal and gorgeous. It got more unpleasant after the blue-tick fiasco: identity verification became something you could buy, which destroyed the trust quotient. So I joined the rival platform Mastodon, but fast realised that I would never get 70,000 followers on there like I had on Twitter. It wasn’t that I wanted the attention per se, just that my gang wasn’t varied or noisy enough. There’s something eerie and a bit depressing about a social media feed that doesn’t refresh often enough, like walking into a shopping mall where half the shops have closed down and the rest are all selling the same thing. Continue reading...

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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. Continue reading...

The X boss strokes his pet cat, otherwise known as far-right hate • You can order your own copy of this cartoon Continue reading...

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The Elon Musk-owned platform remains a vital tool for politicians despite misinformation about disorder in Britain When Keir Starmer was running to be Labour leader in 2020, his aides seriously considered whether they should leave Twitter for good. A number of those who remain close to Starmer as prime minister were then enthusiastic about moving off the platform. The party was still feeling wounded by the brutal election campaign and by the bitterness of the way it had been conducted on social media. Continue reading...

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X owner deletes post sharing faked Telegraph article that claimed convicted rioters would be sent to detention camps Elon Musk shared a fake Telegraph article claiming Keir Starmer was considering sending far-right rioters to “emergency detainment camps” in the Falklands. Musk deleted his post after about 30 minutes but a screenshot captured by Politics.co.uk suggests it had garnered nearly two million views before it was deleted. Continue reading...

The riots in Southport and elsewhere are meat and drink to the leader of Reform UK • You can order your own copy of this cartoon Continue reading...