A week of unrest in the UK

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

A week of unrest in the ***

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==Getty Images

Rotherham was the scene of some of the riots in England this week

For days, similar scenes have played out across England and parts of Northern Ireland – unrest, communities in *****, a huge police presence, with the flames being fanned by social media.

For days, journalists at BBC News have been contacting big tech companies, trying to find out what they are doing about it.

Whatever it is, they don’t want to talk about it – the messaging app Telegram has been the only firm to issue an on-the-record statement.

It is hoped the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

on the streets. But if they hoped that by keeping quiet they would avoid further scrutiny, the tech firms may well be wrong.

“I think it is horrendous they are not taking more ownership of what is happening”, says Baroness Martha Lane Fox, one of the leading lights in the *** tech scene.

She knows big tech from the inside, having sat on the board of

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, as it was then called.

“Generally, they don’t like getting involved in politics – it doesn’t serve them well”, she told the BBC.

Given the *** is a relatively small market, in global terms, she’s “not surprised” by the silence – but says it should not deter the government from acting.

“The lack of accountability and serious regulation that is taking this on is something I think that should alarm all of us”, she says.

What have the tech companies said so far?

Very little.

Meta – the company behind

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and WhatsApp – has made no comment at all. TikTok, Snapchat and the messaging app Signal have also remained silent.

A well-placed source at Snapchat told BBC News the company remained in close contact with the regulator, Ofcom, and the *** government.

Telegram, meanwhile, was in the news after

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

was spread online after starting life on the messaging app. The Law Society of England and Wales said it treated the list as a “very credible threat” to its members.

Telegram did not comment specifically on the list, but did tell the BBC that its moderators were “actively monitoring the situation and are removing channels and posts containing calls to *********”.

Calls to ********* were explicitly forbidden by the messaging platforms terms of service, it said.

And then there is X.

Elon Musk and a war of words with the Prime Ministerdata:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==Getty Images

X owner Elon Musk was criticised for comments he made about the riots.

X, formerly

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, has not responded to any of our requests for comment.

In relation to the riots, there have been false claims, hate and *********** theories

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

When Elon Musk bought it in 2022, he reduced its content moderation. A year later, far-right activist Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

.

Last weekend, Robinson was posting inflammatory messages to his followers on X while relaxing in Cyprus.

X may have been silent this week, but its owner has not.

While commenting about the riots, Mr Musk tweeted “civil war is inevitable” –

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

.

Mr Musk then posted “why aren’t all communities being protected in Britain?”, and #TwoTierKeir – a hashtag used over

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

.

Mr Musk also deleted an image he had shared, which

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

“detainment camps” on the Falkland Islands for rioters.

Why have tech companies kept quiet?data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==Getty Images

Several police officers have been injured in the riots.

“I think that tech companies are often hesitant to wade into politically charged situations”, Matt Navarra, a social media expert, told BBC News.

“I think they ***** alienating portions of their user base or becoming entangled in regulatory battles.”

He said it is a “strategic calculation”.

“By remaining silent, they hope the public attention will shift elsewhere, and they can avoid direct responsibility,” he added.

The companies are, he says, prioritising their bottom line over “public safety and social responsibility”.

Adam Leon Smith, Fellow of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT said the silence was “incredibly disrespectful” to the public.

Media analyst Hanna Kahlert at Midia Research suggested they did not want to say things in public they could for ***** of being held to those comments at a later date.

“They are probably going to be very cautious about how they comment on it, because that’s going to define their strategy moving forward – what they are able to do, what their algorithms promote, which for them are activities that brings in ad revenue.”

What could happen next?

More powers are coming the regulator’s way via the Online Safety Act, due to come into force early next year.

Ofcom published an open letter to platforms saying they should not wait until before taking action.

But some – including the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan – are already questioning whether that is enough.

The prime minister said on Friday that “we’re going to have to look more broadly at social media after this disorder”.

Prof Lorna Woods, a professor of internet law at the University of Essex – who helped shape the legislation – told BBC News: “If the Act were fully in force, it wouldn’t catch all the content. So while organising a riot would be caught, some of the dog whistling tactics and disinformation would not be.”

According to a poll by YouGov this week, two thirds of the British public want social media firms to be held more to account.

Big tech, it seems, has nothing to say. But they could find that others are taking them into a very different future in the ***.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#week #unrest

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up