Following the United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer's statement in a speech last week that social media companies had not done enough to police speech on their platforms and that actual British police would be monitoring speech online, X owner Elon Musk made reference on Tuesday that the U.K. is sliding into an Orwellian society.
"Britain is turning into the Soviet Union," Peter Imanuelsen wrote Tuesday.
"Seriously," Musk replied.
Imanuelsen's comment ostensibly referred to last Monday's deaths of three girls during a Taylor Swift-themed dance event at the hands of a British national born to Rwandan parents. Riots broke out in the aftermath of the event.
On Tuesday, Musk commented on a clip from journalist Andy Ngô, asking Starmer, "Why aren't all communities protected in Britain?"
Ngô's clip showed a scene of a "Muslim patrol" attacking a British pub and "looking for white right-wingers to attack."
Amid the unrest, B.J. Harrington of Britain's National Police Chiefs' Council pinned "disinformation" on social media as the culprit behind the growing agitation in the island nation.
"Disinformation is a huge driver of this appalling violence and we know a lot of those attending these so-called protests are doing so in direct response to what they've read online," Harrington said.
The New York Times reported a post Starmer made on Monday decrying the protests in a video. Starmer commented above the video, "We will not tolerate attacks on mosques or on Muslim communities."
Musk replied to the post, "Shouldn't you be concerned about attacks on *all* communities?"
As a result of the increased in tensions in the U.K., Starmer made no attempt to shy away for what some online have called an implementation of Orwellian tactics.
In his speech last week, Starmer called for further efforts for "shared intelligence [online], wider deployment of facial recognition technology, and preventative action — criminal behavior orders to restrict ... movements."
He also maintained that quashing bad speech online was the single most important action of the U.K. government.
"And let me also say to large social media companies and those who run them: Violent disorder clearly whipped up online is also a crime. It's happening on your premises, and the law must be upheld everywhere.
"That is the single most important duty of government. Service rests on security, and we will take all necessary action to keep our streets safe."
In the days afterward, Starmer announced that a number of people had been arrested as a result of their "online activities."