Opinion: Countries Can’t Stop Elon Musk Stoking ‘Civil War’—But We Can

When the controversial owner of X (formerly Twitter), Elon Musk suggested that “civil war” was inevitable in response to false claims about the recent UK riots, he sparked a diplomatic firestorm. The British government condemned his comments, with one official complaining that Musk was “accountable to no one.”

But the incident also highlighted a troubling reality: as the owner of a major social media platform, Musk wields immense power to spread incendiary content—and almost any traditional way of trying to stop him would inevitably backfire.

Riots have been happening across the UK recently, following the stabbing deaths of three children by a teenager at a dance and yoga event. Extremist agitators used channels on the social media app Telegram to stir up hatred and anger, mostly by falsely claiming that the teenager was a Muslim refugee.

Since then, the riots have expanded, even as the original claim was debunked. Many are blaming social media apps for exacerbating the violence and calling for the UK government to crack down on the platforms for allowing incendiary speech. The UK only recently passed its “Online Safety Act ,” which empowers the UK’s telecom regulator, Ofcom, to combat disinformation online.

However, the law is not fully operational yet, so Ofcom has merely published a pleading open letter to social media platforms asking them to follow codes of practice to minimize harm.

That all sounds well and good in a world in which the platforms want to minimize harm. But what happens when one platform, X, is run by a guy like Elon Musk who seems to be actively and excitedly fanning the flames of harm?

Last weekend, as the riots were increasing, Elon tweeted “civil war is inevitable” in reply to a tweet falsely claiming that the UK riots were “the effects of mass migration and open borders.” The UK government hit back at Musk, saying “there is no justification for comments like that.”

Musk seemed unbothered. A video featuring British Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson, saying people sharing material deemed likely to incite racial hatred could be prosecuted, which was posted by the account “End Wokeness” was retweeted by Musk, with his added caption, “Woke Stasi.”

However, as The Daily Beast reported Thursday , Musk seems to have recognized—at least for once—a mistake on his own part, deleting one of his own posts based on a fake news story about sending prisoners to emergency camps on the Falkland Islands. He had posted a two-word caption to his 193 million followers: “Detainment Camps.” Musk deleted the post after 35 minutes, presumably after realizing he had been pranked.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Times newspaper, UK Secretary of Innovation and Technology Peter Kyle complained separately that Musk was “ accountable to no one .” He further argued that the UK and other governments now feel as though they need to treat the various large tech companies as if they’re governments themselves.

“So, the relationship we have with some of these companies is much more akin to the negotiations with fellow secretaries of state in other countries, simply because of the scale and scope that they have.”

This is hardly the first time arguments like this have been made. Last year, the New Yorker had a feature article by Ronan Farrow detailing how the US government struggled to work with Musk , which made similar arguments.

And it’s become a common rhetorical point to argue that these companies are larger than nation states.

But it’s important to remember that private companies and nation states are different in important ways. Treating one as if it were the other leads to very bad outcomes. Nation states can trade with one another. Or not trade. Or create trade barriers, such as tariffs. They can bar or allow travel. Or put conditions on it. They can sign treaties.

And the interactions between nation states and private organizations (and individuals) are quite different as well. They can levy taxes or issue fines for legal violations. They can arrest and imprison people. They can deny entry via visas. The tools are different and the impact is different.

The different realities and the different ways that nation states and private entities can and do interact lead to very different affordances and very different outcomes.

Also, most of the interactions over the past decade were along the lines of: “you need to be better about limiting the spread of content designed to incite violence.” Often, these are situations where the companies agree and want to limit the spread of such content for their own reasons, but may just disagree on how to do so.

It’s entirely different when one of the companies is owned and operated by an individual who himself is one of the leading spreaders of that kind of content.

Most companies don’t want to be spreading that kind of information because it’s bad for their own reputation and the willingness of both advertisers and users to continue to use the platform. But, in Elon’s case, there appear to be extraordinarily different incentives at play.

Treating X and Elon as being in the same boat as some other companies, or believing that they can be influenced or persuaded in the same manner as a nation-state, seems like a dangerous move that won’t end well for anyone.

Elon relishes fighting with certain governments (so long as they’re not run by his ideological kindred spirits among right-leaning authoritarians ). Pushing or threatening Elon over this is likely to just lead him to playing “free speech martyr” as he’s done in the past. And, to some extent, he wouldn’t be wrong.

The real complaint here is with Elon’s speech. In an ideal world, Elon would have enough understanding of how things work to recognize that his speech could incite increasing violence and decide to stop. But if the U.K. keeps pushing him, he’s only likely to dig in and act as if he’s the victim.

The real issue shouldn’t be the UK government and Elon fighting at all. It should be how we avoid ending up in such a position in the first place. How can we better educate the public not to fall for this kind of incendiary nonsense? How do we make it so that Elon’s ignorant brainfarts don’t have the widespread impact that is causing messes like this today? In Elon’s own words , he should have freedom of speech, but that doesn’t grant him freedom of “reach.”

Having more places that people can speak and communicate with each other means that any particular platform would have less power. It also means that anyone who controls an individual platform would have less impact as well. The real goal shouldn’t be dealing with large companies as if they are nation states—it should be making sure no company is ever powerful enough to be mistaken for one.

Read more at The Daily Beast.