X/Twitter owner Elon Musk has been critical of Sir Keir Starmer and the UK Government for a good while now, and in one of his latest attacks, the tech billionaire has asked why the country’s government is “so fascist” with respect to arrests over online comments – as xAI’s Grok chatbot continues to come under fire for ‘undressing’ images of women and children.

Musk made the remarks on Saturday, quote tweeting a bar chart purporting to show the UK at the top of the chart as the country “with the most arrests for online comments”, with more than 12,183 arrests – apparently.

When far-right criminal Tommy Robinson pushed the figure in September, a fact check by The Standard noted the number appeared to come from a Times article published in April, quoting custody data relating to the Communications Act 2003 and the Malicious Communications Act 1988.

A police officer quoted in the Times article says is not just “online comments” but rather “any form of communication”

But that’s not the only issue with this tweet, as it was only two months ago that Musk claimed that “falsely labelling non-violent people as ‘fascist’ or ‘Nazi’ should be treated as incitement to murder”.

And so, people soon pointed out the two contradictory tweets:

“This you,” asked one:

While the Larry the Cat X/Twitter account used Musk’s words against him, tweeting: “Why are you inciting murder?”:

Starmer said this week that he has asked for “all options to be on the table” when it comes to taking action against Grok, while X/Twitter’s Safety account said on 4 January that X “[takes] action against illegal content on X, including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary”.

“Anyone using or prompting Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content,” it added.

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