The internet suddenly went down in Iran last night, as courageous Iranians continued to rise up against the Ayatollah. The UK government was apparently inspired. Not by the rebels, whose plight the Prime Minister has remained remarkably quiet about – but by the mullahs’ digital crackdown.
Call me a conspiracy loon, but I dare say Labour’s ire for X isn’t simply about the site’s supposedly insufficient safeguarding policies
Britain’s Labour party has issued its most serious threat yet to social-media giant X – whose owner, Elon Musk, has become this rudderless government’s go-to bogeyman. The platform could be banned in Britain, Downing Street sources let it be known, if it failed to comply with demands to act on the sickos who have been using X’s AI tool, Grok, to digitally undress women, even children.
“X has got to get a grip of this and Ofcom [Britain’s communications regulator] has our full support to take action in relation to this. This is wrong,” burbled Keir Starmer, in an interview on his favored outlet for saber-rattling edicts: Greatest Hits Radio. “It’s unlawful. We’re not going to tolerate it. I’ve asked for all options to be on the table.”
So let’s have a look at that table. Under the Online Safety Act, the most serious sanction available is a full-blown ban. Ofcom can apply for something called an access restriction order, which would compel app stores and service providers to block users from accessing a supposedly wayward platform – if it has refused to comply with the law and address regulators’ concerns.
The prospect of banning X has been dismissed as a “conspiracy theory” by Labour MP Chris Bryant. Perhaps he should tell No. 10 officials, who similarly reminded the media that Ofcom holds the power to do precisely that. “Nice social-media platform you’ve got there, it would be a shame if anything happened to it” – this was obviously the message the government was keen to project.
This row may well be over for now. X has since limited access to Grok to paid users, meaning only those who have registered their name and bank details with the site will be able to muck about with the image-editor. Presumably, this will stem the tide of anonymous creeps harassing women by generating bikini pictures of them – which became something of a viral trend over the festive period – and make those uploading illegal content much easier to pin down and punish.
But you’d have to be terminally naive to believe that this was a discrete compliance problem, approached firmly but in good faith. The liberal-left has been enraged by X ever since the eccentric Musk bought it, loosening up speech controls and – more recently – using it as his own personal megaphone to rail against Starmer’s government on everything from mass migration to grooming gangs to crackdowns on free speech.
Even where there are legal issues that need to be addressed, it’s worth stressing just how drastic a step banning a big social-media platform would be. Britain would join the company of China, Iran, Russia and North Korea. The only democracy that has ever blocked X is Brazil, due to Musk’s refusal to ban 140 accounts, which included elected members of its Congress. (Musk eventually capitulated and X was restored a few months later.)
Call me a conspiracy loon, but I dare say Labour’s ire for X isn’t simply about the site’s supposedly insufficient safeguarding policies. Maybe – just maybe! – it has something to do with Musk’s vocal opposition to Starmer’s rule, and his decision to allow all manner of previously deplatformed dissenters back on to his platform. Facebook has long been accused of not doing enough on child grooming. Bluesky – favored platform for those wonderful #BeKind types – has a well-documented problem with death threats. But I’m yet to see Keir take a swing in either of their directions.
Big Tech should not be above the law, certainly where harassment and abuse are concerned. But let’s not pretend that is all that is going on here. You need not be a fan of Musk – who has tumbled down the crank-right rabbit hole of late – to see that a state willing to shut down online discussion is a menace to all of our freedom. Just ask the brave folk of Tehran.
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