Elon Musk DEFENDS free speech for hundreds of Britons as it’s revealed he REFUSED to hand over account details to police amid Southport unrest
Elon Musk’s social media platform refused to hand the account details of hundreds of British people to police during and after last summer’s unrest.
New figures published by X showed that Musk’s firm turned down over half of UK Government information requests in the second half of 2024, The Telegraph revealed on Friday.
X said it shared user information in 379 out of 806 cases, a disclosure rate of 47 per cent – significantly lower than those of other firms like Google, Meta, TikTok and LinkedIn.
Musk’s figures cover requests from police and other official bodies and can include data including email and internet addresses or even private messages.
The latest data drop stretched across July and August – when unrest broke out across the country, and dozens of people were arrested for social media posts.
Some received prison sentences – a fact which has since dominated both Musk’s and close ally Vice President JD Vance’s public opinion of Britain.
Last summer, Musk compared the UK to the Soviet Union and accused the weeks-old Labour Government of “censorship”.
Then in January, following the reemergence of public outcry over grooming gangs, he wrote: “At this rate, the UK Government will pretty soon be executing people for liking a meme!”
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Police routinely ask social media firms to hand over information to help with investigations – usually in a bid to identify anonymous accounts or see who they might be communicating with.
Firms’ legal teams then assess the requests and can reject them if they are seen to be too broad or risk breaking privacy laws.
A small number are made as emergency requests – where police think an “imminent threat” is inbound.
X’s legal website says it “may seek to narrow requests that are overly broad, request additional context if the nature of the investigation is not clear, or push back on the request for other reasons”.
And the new data shows it recorded a surge in requests from the UK during the second half of last year – rising to 806 from 635 in the first half of 2024.
Musk’s 47 per cent compliance rate in Britain was much lower than that in the US – where his platform disclosed user data in almost 80 per cent of cases.
It was also much lower than other tech firms, including Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram owner Meta, which released data in 84 per cent of cases in the UK during the first half of 2024.
At the same time, Google recorded an 88 per cent compliance rate, with TikTok and LinkedIn significantly lower at 62 and 61 per cent – though none of those three have released their data for the second half of 2024.