Social media and the riots: Musk, misinformation and moral responsibility.
Radical with Amol Rajan
BBC
4.5 • 919 Ratings
🗓️ 8 August 2024
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Elon Musk has repeatedly attacked Sir Keir Starmer on his platform ‘X’ this week over the handling of riots in England and Northern Ireland.
The disorder follows the fatal stabbing last week of three young girls in Southport and has been fuelled by misinformation online, the far-right and anti-immigration sentiment.
This week Amol looks at whether social media companies should be forced to go further in stopping the spread of misinformation online.
He is joined by David Wilding, a former director of Twitter UK who resigned when Musk took over, and former Facebook trust & safety manager Professor Victoria Baines, now at Gresham College.
And University Challenge’s Roger Tilling returns to the podcast to chat about the new series – and his moment of the week.
If you have a question you’d like to Amol and Nick to answer, get in touch by sending us a message or voice note via WhatsApp to +44 330 123 4346 or email us Today@bbc.co.uk
Episodes of The Today Podcast land first on BBC Sounds. Get Amol and Nick's take on the biggest stories of the week, with insights from behind the scenes at the UK's most influential radio news programme.
The Today Podcast is hosted by Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson, both presenters of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the UK’s most influential radio news programme. Amol was the BBC’s media editor for six years and is the former editor of the Independent, he’s also the current presenter of University Challenge. Nick has presented the Today programme since 2015, he was the BBC’s political editor for ten years before that and also previously worked as ITV’s political editor.
You can listen to the latest episode of The Today Podcast any time on your smart speaker by saying “Smart Speaker, ask BBC Sounds to play The Today Podcast.”
The senior producer is Tom Smithard, the producer is Hatty Nash, the researcher is Joe Wilkinson. The editor is Louisa Lewis. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths. Technical production from Jack Graysmark and digital production from Charlie Henry.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We get it. Life is busy. You want to keep up with the news, but there's just too much going on. |
| 0:06.9 | Which is where Newscast comes in. We do the work, and when you're ready to dig deeper into the day's news, you just pop us into your ears. |
| 0:14.8 | It does mean we have to put in the hard work, though. |
| 0:17.5 | Listen to Newscast every day on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:21.4 | BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts. |
| 0:25.2 | Well, just because he hasn't got quite enough on his plate, |
| 0:28.6 | what with running several enormous companies, |
| 0:31.2 | Elon Musk has got very directly involved in British politics this week. |
| 0:35.3 | He described Keir Starma as two-tier Kier, |
| 0:39.0 | and he said that the rioting on our streets is in effect the early stages of a civil war. |
| 0:45.4 | And it comes as the government introduces new laws to regulate social media platforms. |
| 0:50.4 | And if you're thinking you've heard about this before and you've heard about it from me, |
| 0:53.6 | well, yes, we've been talking about those new laws for a very long time. The trouble is regulating |
| 0:59.0 | social media is really hard to do. Will those new laws be enough? Should social media companies |
| 1:05.5 | be forced to go even further in preventing their platforms being used to spread insurrection |
| 1:10.4 | and deceit and conspiracy. |
| 1:12.7 | Can you actually do it? And if you can't, what can governments actually do about the lies |
| 1:18.3 | and the incitement to violence that we're seeing on social media with its very significant real |
| 1:24.0 | world effects? We've got two fantastic guests to address these very thorny, |
| 1:28.5 | very difficult questions today. |
| 1:29.9 | We've got a former boss of Twitter in the UK, |
| 1:31.7 | no big fan of Elon Musk, I think it's fair to say, |
... |
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