Best Of

Elon Musk is retweeting Rupert Lowe again:

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2064396727344320767

Musk’s comment:

Only Restore Britain can save Britain.

It is the only way.

That’s a nakedly partisan political comment to someone with likely several million UK followers, during a restricted election period.

Will one of the other parties ask for a ruling from the Electoral Commission on what might be the value of such posts, if they need to be included in by-election spending, and ask Lowe to produce any communications he may have had with Mr Musk?

Eh?

So if Lord Sugar or Tony Robinson or other celebs who've endorsed Labour in the past make naked partisan comments, does that get counted against their budget?

Many ways to criticise Musk and Restore, but celebrities making comments is neither new nor actionable surely?

That’s a fair argument, that it’s the same as a newspaper endorsement coming from the proprietor or editorial team. But what if they’re foreigners widely read in the UK.

There’s plenty of both positives and negatives about Mr Lowe, but I was thinking it’s an issue that hasnn’t come up before, so might be worthy of somebody getting a ruling on what is or isn’t allowed.

The simple solution to most of our Social Media related woes is to make any platform that uses an alogorithm other than chronological liable as any other media publisher. It would cut them down to size very quickly if they didn't shape up.

You do not think users should be able to choose what they want to see, and block what they do not want under your "chronological only" rule? Would you apply "chronological only" to other media? Newspapers would become unreadable, as would medical journals. It sounds fine but it completely ignores reality.

Newspapers and medical journals already accept responsibility for what they publish.

If a reader sets preferences, that is very different to the Social Media alogorithim choosing them.

So the first 2 people arrested in the protests outside Southampton police station have got 34 and 37 months each in prison

For what, exactly? Looks awfully “Two-tier” unless someone was seriously injured.

No one should be in any doubt by now that the courts take a f*cking dim view of violent disorder and rioting.

Been that way for a long long time.

Twitter seems to think this was the same judge who sentenced Lucy Connolly. Any truth to that?

"Twitter seems to think" = "Untrue with near 100% probability".

Sandpit is basically a conspiracy theorist.

He accepted an alternative position when presented with it - they don't do that.

Sandpit is just one of the billions of people who mistake social media for a news source.

Twitter is a great news source.
It just needs treating with a massive dose of scepticism.

Elon Musk is retweeting Rupert Lowe again:

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2064396727344320767

Musk’s comment:

Only Restore Britain can save Britain.

It is the only way.

That’s a nakedly partisan political comment to someone with likely several million UK followers, during a restricted election period.

Will one of the other parties ask for a ruling from the Electoral Commission on what might be the value of such posts, if they need to be included in by-election spending, and ask Lowe to produce any communications he may have had with Mr Musk?

Eh?

So if Lord Sugar or Tony Robinson or other celebs who've endorsed Labour in the past make naked partisan comments, does that get counted against their budget?

Many ways to criticise Musk and Restore, but celebrities making comments is neither new nor actionable surely?

But Musk isn’t just commenting. He’s broadcasting his message to the world through the social media platform he owns. Twitter is programmed to push his thoughts at people. That’s closer to if Lord Sugar took out a paid advert.

That's not new though, Murdoch has broadcast his messages to the world through platforms he owns for decades. When has it ever been expensed?

Sandpit asked whether Lowe had had communications with Musk. If someone endorsed you, that’s one thing. If a candidate arranges with someone for the equivalent of a paid ad, that’s something that could come under rules around election communications and donations.

What's the precedence for that?

Politicians have regularly had correspondence with Murdoch et al.

More than just correspondance: see Blair's pilgrimage to Murdoch.

The one area where Lowe does need to be *slightly* careful, though, is to make sure he's disclosing all his Twitter/X earnings. If he really is taking in 10k+/month then that should be disclosed in the Register of Interests.

So the first 2 people arrested in the protests outside Southampton police station have got 34 and 37 months each in prison

For what, exactly? Looks awfully “Two-tier” unless someone was seriously injured.

No one should be in any doubt by now that the courts take a f*cking dim view of violent disorder and rioting.

Been that way for a long long time.

Twitter seems to think this was the same judge who sentenced Lucy Connolly. Any truth to that?

"Twitter seems to think" = "Untrue with near 100% probability".

Sandpit is basically a conspiracy theorist.

He accepted an alternative position when presented with it - they don't do that.

Sandpit is just one of the billions of people who mistake social media for a news source.

Twitter is a great news source.
It just needs treating with a massive dose of scepticism.

Twitter was a great news source - but since the algorithms changed what you see is far more biased than it used to be.

Elon Musk is retweeting Rupert Lowe again:

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2064396727344320767

Musk’s comment:

Only Restore Britain can save Britain.

It is the only way.

That’s a nakedly partisan political comment to someone with likely several million UK followers, during a restricted election period.

Will one of the other parties ask for a ruling from the Electoral Commission on what might be the value of such posts, if they need to be included in by-election spending, and ask Lowe to produce any communications he may have had with Mr Musk?

Eh?

So if Lord Sugar or Tony Robinson or other celebs who've endorsed Labour in the past make naked partisan comments, does that get counted against their budget?

Many ways to criticise Musk and Restore, but celebrities making comments is neither new nor actionable surely?

But Musk isn’t just commenting. He’s broadcasting his message to the world through the social media platform he owns. Twitter is programmed to push his thoughts at people. That’s closer to if Lord Sugar took out a paid advert.

That's not new though, Murdoch has broadcast his messages to the world through platforms he owns for decades. When has it ever been expensed?

Sandpit asked whether Lowe had had communications with Musk. If someone endorsed you, that’s one thing. If a candidate arranges with someone for the equivalent of a paid ad, that’s something that could come under rules around election communications and donations.

What's the precedence for that?

Politicians have regularly had correspondence with Murdoch et al.