Fresh from pouring his money and energies into helping Donald Trump win reelection, Elon Musk has trained his sights on Europe, setting off alarm bells among politicians across the continent.
The Tesla and SpaceX chief executive has endorsed the far-right Alternative for Germany, demanded the release of jailed U.K. anti-Islam extremist Tommy Robinson and called British Prime Minister Keir Starmer an evil tyrant who should be in prison.
I think it might be too late. We just don’t have the mechanics in place to manage this type of threat.
Take for example Musk’s “lottery” in the US. If not technically contrary to law, very much contrary to the spirit of the law, and while I suspect that some kind of “action” was commenced, it was certainly never progressed in any meaningful way. Closing the gate not only after the proverbial horse has bolted, but after that horse has run amok, sired a foal on the prize mare, and grown old and died.
It was hard enough when nana was sharing memes on facebook or your second cousin was getting radicalised on youtube. Now social platforms are openly influencing “engagement” with bots, very obviously supporting far right rhetoric in the name of “free speech”, and avoiding any suppression of misinformation.