UK Politics

MPs are to summon Elon Musk to testify about [Twitter's] role in spreading disinformation, in a parliamentary inquiry into the UK riots and the rise of false and harmful AI content, the Guardian has learned.

Senior executives from Meta, which runs Facebook and Instagram, and TikTok are also expected to be called for questioning as part of a Commons science and technology select committee social media inquiry.

The first hearings will take place in the new year, amid rising concern that UK online safety laws risk being outpaced by rapidly advancing technology and the politicisation of platforms such as [Twitter].

The MPs will investigate the consequences of generative AI, which was used in widely shared images posted on Facebook and [Twitter] inciting people to join Islamophobic protests after the killing of three schoolgirls in Southport in August. They will also investigate Silicon Valley business models that “encourage the spread of content that can mislead and harm”.
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[Twitter] did not respond when asked if Musk would testify in the UK, although it appears unlikely. The world’s richest man is preparing to take on a senior role in the Trump White House and has been highly critical of the Labour government, including weighing in on changes to inheritance tax on farms by saying on Monday that “Britain is going full Stalin”. During the riots that followed the Southport killings he said: “Civil war is inevitable.”
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[Chi Onwurah, Labour chair of the Commons science and technology select committee social media inquiry,] said the inquiry would attempt to “get to the bottom of the links between social media algorithms, generative AI, and the spread of harmful or false content”.

It will also look at the use of AI to supplement search engines such as Google, which was found recently to be regurgitating false and racist claims about people in African countries having low average IQs. Google said the AI overviews containing the claims had violated its policies and had been removed.