Musk warned not to ‘amplify harmful content’ after riots

The European Union’s tech tsar has slapped Elon Musk with a warning after suggesting his social media platform played a role in far-Right riots that spread across the UK.

Thierry Breton, France’s EU commissioner, suggested the billionaire tech mogul’s X platform could have fallen foul of the bloc’s rules on hate speech and disinformation.

The eurocrat said in an open letter that Mr Musk, the world’s richest man, had an EU-imposed legal obligation to stop the “amplification of harmful content” on X, formerly known as Twitter.

At the start of the letter, Mr Breton said he was writing to Mr Musk in the context of “recent events in the United Kingdom” and Monday’s interview on X with Donald Trump.

“As the relevant content is accessible to EU users and being amplified also in our jurisdiction, we cannot exclude potential spillovers in the EU,” Mr Breton wrote.

“Therefore, we are monitoring the potential risks in the EU associated with the dissemination of content that may incite violence, hate and racism in conjunction with major political – or societal – events around the world, including debates and interviews in the context of election.”

‘F--- your own face’

In response to the letter, Mr Musk replied with a meme saying: “Take a big step back and literally, f--- your own face!”

Britain left the EU on January 31, 2020, and is not bound by the bloc’s rules on social media platforms.

Mr Musk was branded “deeply irresponsible” by the UK Government after he claimed Britain was heading for civil war in his own social media post about the riots in UK cities last week after the stabbing of young children in Southport.

He criticised prison sentences handed to two people for rioting and engaged with posts by Tommy Robinson, the far-Right activist whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.

The entrepreneur also shared a fake Telegraph article that was posted on X by Ashley Simon, the co-leader of Britain First, the far-Right political party. Mr Musk later deleted his post.

Mr Breton said “any negative effect of illegal content” could lead Brussels to take action against X.

The Frenchman’s letter also referred to the interview between Mr Musk and Trump, which was live-streamed on the platform.

Mr Trump was suspended from X, then known as Twitter, by its former owners, in the wake of the US Capitol riots in January 2021.

The former president’s account was reinstated when Mr Musk took over a year later, but remained mainly inactive until Monday, when it started promoting their interview.

A spokesman for the Trump campaign said: “The European Union should mind their own business instead of trying to meddle in the US presidential election.”

Mr Musk later wrote online that he would be “happy to host” Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, on X for a similar interview.

On Tuesday, it emerged that Mr Breton had shared the letter without permission from his boss, Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission’s president.

A spokeswoman for the cxommission denied that the Frenchman had approval before issuing the missive, suggesting a rift between the two politicians.

“The timing and the wording of the letter were neither coordinated or agreed with the president nor with the college of commissioners,” the spokeswoman told journalists.