Lawmakers want to quiz Musk about AI's role in riots

Technology billionaire Elon Musk will be invited to give evidence to a panel of United Kingdom lawmakers probing the role of social media in riots that swept the nation in the summer.

The panel, known as the parliamentary science, innovation and technology select committee, is looking into whether online disinformation played a role in the unrest, which flared after three girls were stabbed to death in Southport, England in August.

In the days that followed the killings, rumors spread online that they were the work of a radical Islamist who had recently arrived in the UK as an asylum seeker. The rumors may have helped inflame anger that led to mobs attacking mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers.

The Guardian newspaper said the committee investigating the relationship between social media and riots wants to know whether Musk's social media platform X allowed false information to spread.

The paper said senior executives from Meta, which is the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, will also be called to testify, as will top officials from the short-form video-hosting service TikTok.

The appearances will likely take place early next year.

Chi Onwurah, a Labour Party lawmaker who chairs the select committee, told The Guardian she believes Musk has "very strong views on multiple aspects of this".

"I would certainly like the opportunity to cross-examine him, to see…how he reconciles his promotion of freedom of expression with his promotion of pure disinformation," she said.

The committee is understood to be especially interested in the role of generative artificial intelligence, or AI, which it believes may have been used to create images that were shared on social media platforms to stir up anti-Islam unrest.

Musk, who will serve as the chief of the United States' Department of Government Efficiency in Donald Trump's incoming administration, cannot be compelled to appear before the committee and has not yet said whether he will attend.

He has, however, previously accused the UK government of allowing "two-tier policing" that he said inhibits free speech among some opinion-holders while allowing other views to be aired.

He also said at the time of the riots that "civil war is inevitable" in the UK, a comment that drew criticism from the government.

Onwurah told the online news site POLITICO: "Mr Musk is the most senior representative of X and one, moreover, who we know has very strong views on misinformation, communication, free speech, and society. I would very much hope he would want to share the thinking behind those views with the committee, especially given his role as advisor to President-elect Trump."

Onwurah's committee formally launched its investigation on Wednesday.

earle@mail.chinadailyuk.com