WASHINGTON (TNND) — Elon Musk indirectly accused the United Kingdom of being ruled by fascists by pointing to the thousands of arrests made by the British government over online social media posts deemed “indecent, obscene or menacing character.”
On Monday, the X owner shared a post made by an anonymous account which included an unsourced chart that showed the number of arrests based on social media posts per country. The United Kingdom led the pack with 12,183 arrests reported, but the graph did not include over what time period this information was collected. The account said this graph shows “what fascism looks like.”
“The UK arrests more people for social media posts than any other country on Earth,” the anonymous account wrote.
Musk concurred, writing “real fascism is arresting thousands of people for social media posts.”
In another post, Musk commented “Wow” in response to Polymarket, the world’s largest prediction market, posting that the UK “has now arrested more than 12,000 people for free speech online.”
The Polymarket tweet is based on information uncovered by freedom of information requests made by “The Times” in April in determining the number of arrests made in England and Wales because of online posts found to be in violation of section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988.
Both of these acts make it illegal for a person to share or send content that is “grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character” as well as “threatening, or knowingly false.”
In 2023, there were a total of 12,183 arrests made, and 1,119 people were sentenced.
Since 2017 there have been more than 65,000 arrests with a dramatic increase in arrests over the last couple of years, according to The Times reporting.
Jake Hurfurt, head of research investigations at Big Brother Watch, shared with The Times that the influx of arrests is “seriously concerning” and could reflect an abuse of power by authorities.
“Police look to be wasting countless hours on arresting people for posting things online that, while offensive, are not illegal. Heavy-handed use of vague communications offences is a threat to everyone’s freedom to express themselves online,” Hurfurt said.
Musk’s attention on the United Kingdom’s policing of online content is a likely response to the United Kingdom’s threats to ban X. The United Kingdom is threatening to ban the social media platform because Grok, the AI chatbot, is producing sexually explicit images of women and children at the request of users. Last week, Musk put image generation behind a paywall, but critics have said this has not done enough to curb the creation of the lewd images.
Meanwhile, the State Department said on Tuesday that “nothing is off the table” if the United Kingdom decides to go ahead with banning X in the UK.
State Department’s Sarah B. Rogers said UK’s threats to shut down X is about the government wanting “the ability to curate a public square, to suppress political viewpoints it dislikes.”
Just last month, the Trump administration moved to ban five prominent European figures from entering the United States over allegations that they are censoring “American viewpoints” on online platforms.
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