Meta's Nick Clegg roasts 'ideological' Elon Musk
The Meta exec and former British deputy PM launched a broadside at X owner Elon Musk.
Top Meta exec and former British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg tore into Elon Musk. | Pool Photo by Toby Melville via Getty Images
September 12, 2024 5:58 pm CET
LONDON — Watch out Elon, Sir Nick’s out to get you.
Top Meta exec and former British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg tore into Elon Musk on Thursday, saying the tech mogul had turned X into “a sort of one man, sort of hyper-partisan and ideological hobby horse.”
In a wide-ranging talk at the Chatham House think tank in London, Clegg laid into Musk multiple times, contrasting Meta’s approach to content moderation with that adopted by X since Musk’s takeover.
“We unavoidably have to,” Clegg said to a question about whether Meta needed to moderate its platforms.
“Unless you want to do an Elon Musk and let anyone say anything — but that’s not the way we run Facebook and Instagram,” he continued.
Clegg pointed out how activists banned on Meta platforms for violating policies, such as Andrew Tate and Tommy Robinson, were allowed to “run amok” on X and Telegram ahead of far-right riots that struck Britain this summer.
Meta would, he said, work with regulators in the U.K. and the European Union to implement new online content moderation rulebooks.
Nick Clegg pointed out how activists banned on Meta platforms for violating policies. | Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesIn another broadside at Musk’s platform, Clegg — who himself boasts hundreds of thousands of followers on X — called it a “tiny platform” that was designed for “elites.”
“It’s honestly not used by the vast majority of normal people around the world,” Clegg said of X.
“People go to X to start yelling at each other about current affairs and politics … it’s a tiny, elite, news-obsessed, politics-obsessed app. The vast, vast, vast majority of people join Facebook and Instagram because they for much more playful reasons.”
