Elon Musk ‘cannot be persuaded to do the right thing’ and social media companies must be ‘threatened’ into doing the right thing. 

That's according to Irish Examiner columnist Fergus Finlay who believes social media has increasingly become infested with far-right hate and tech companies need to do more to tackle this. 

In the past week, some 600 people have been arrested following riots in parts of England and Northern Ireland. 

Dozens of police officers have been injured and shops, cars and people’s homes have all been damaged. 

Some of the violence appears to be motivated by anti-immigrant sentiment - a mosque in Liverpool and Muslims graves in nearby Burnley have all been vandalised. 

On Moncreiff, Mr Finlay said he did not believe in banning social media but stronger regulation is needed. 

“I am utterly in favour of forcing them to be much more open about the mechanisms behind what they’re doing," he said. 

“It’s self-evident that if you say something particularly hateful on X, it gets multiplied instantly and a thousand times.” 

We are aware of social media posts calling for protests across Northern Ireland in the week ahead. Further advice and information can be found here - https://t.co/aSkmhNAtY3 pic.twitter.com/MFqMvMNTqZ

— Police Service NI (@PoliceServiceNI) August 5, 2024

Mr Finlay singled out Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter/X, for particular criticism. 

Over the weekend, X owner Elon Musk predicted “civil war is inevitable” in Europe and Mr Findaly said he “allows evil things” to appear on the platform. 

“Increasingly, [hate] gets endorsed by the owner of X who seems to be totally in favour of civil war in Britain and various other things,” he said. 

X HQ at 1 Cumberland Place. Photo: Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie

The solution, Mr Finlay, believes is for broadband providers to give social media companies an ultimatum - change or find yourself banned. 

“They have to be forced,” he said. 

“Twitter said that it has community standards and it doesn’t enable or facilitate hate speech - it clearly does. 

“It clearly does it through the use of algorithms which are operating behind the scenes. 

“They have to be forced to allow an independent audit of those algorithms; the only way they can be forced is by being threatened.

“You can’t persuade Elon Musk to do the right thing  - that seems clear.”

Any ban on a social media platform would not be without precedent; earlier this year, US President Joe Biden signed into law legislation that will ban TikTok unless the platform is sold to a non-Chinese company.

Main image: Elon Musk. Picture by: Suzanne Cordeiro/Zuma Press/PA Images