The head of UKʼs tech committee Chi Onwurah dealt with a wave of hate-filled messages from X users after she asked the platforms owner to speak about summer unrest. The Labour MP got many hostile posts that mixed both gender-based and racial attacks which made her take short breaks from the social-media site
UK MPs will be summoned to the United States of America to explain their censorship and threats to American citizens
The committee wants to check how social-media affects public mood during big events: their main focus is on computer programs that show posts to users. Onwurah plans to contact several tech firms including:
- Meta
- X (bought for $44bn about 2 years ago)
The investigation started after Xʼs role in spreading info during jul-24 street problems; at that time Musk posted that UK civil-war cant be avoided. Heʼs now the sites biggest voice with 206m people following him and this week he supported calls for new UK voting saying “people of Britain have had enough of a tyrannical police state“
The committee chair says she wont leave X despite joining its rival Bluesky - but she needs time-offs when online attacks get too much. “Its not just about talking with Elon Musk“ she explains “you must know that web responses can be awful - sometimes you need to step back for hours or days“