Elon Musk Shares Fake News Of UK Rioters Being Deported To Falklands
Owner of X, Elon Musk, deletes his post of faked article that claimed UK rioters would be deported to Falkland Islands
Elon Musk continues his commentary on the recent UK protests and riots, and even shared a fake news post before hurriedly deleting it.
The Guardian reported that Musk had deleted his post of a faked Telegraph article, which claimed that convicted rioters in the UK would be sent to detention camps in the Falkland Islands.
Musk has history in sharing faked right wing news and conspiracy theories. A notable example was the 2022 attack on Paul Pelosi, husband to the previous House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi.
Musk and fake news
After Paul Pelosi underwent surgery for his injuries after an attacker beat him with a hammer in his home, the billionaire tweeted and shared a link to a discredited website that suggested Paul’s injuries had been caused by a male prostitute whom he had met at a gay bar.
Musk wrote at the time: “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye.”
San Francisco authorities subsequently released body camera footage of the moments after the October 2022 attack, in which the home invader can be seen inside Pelosi’s home, gripping a hammer and attacking Paul Pelosi as police attempted to talk him down.
Musk later deleted his tweet about the attack, but did not apologise publicly for posting it.
And now it seems that Musk has again shared a fake news article, before he quickly deleted it – again without apologising.
The Guardian noted that Elon Musk had shared a fake Daily Telegraph article that claimed that Sir Keir Starmer was considering sending far-right rioters to “emergency detainment camps” in the Falklands.
No apology
Musk deleted his post after about 30 minutes but a screenshot captured by Politics.co.uk suggests it had garnered nearly two million views before it was taken down.
In his tweet, Musk shared the image posted by the co-leader of the far-right group Britain First, Ashlea Simon, which she captioned with, “we’re all being deported to the Falklands”.
The fake piece was mocked up in the Telegraph’s style, claimed camps in the Falklands “would be used to detain prisoners from the ongoing riots as the British prison system is already at capacity”.
The Telegraph said on Thursday it had never published the article in question. And in a post on X, the newspaper shared a screenshot of the offending fake news article.
✍️ At the most superficial level, glimpsed in a flash on social media, it looked like a legitimate Telegraph piece https://t.co/eqTXclPAwb
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) August 8, 2024
In May this year, a social media analysis company had warned that it had found fake accounts posting about the upcoming US presidential election were proliferating on X.
Musk vs UK government
Elon Musk has spent days embroiled in a war of words with the British government and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, over his ongoing posts on the riots and protests in the UK.
Musk tweeted that “civil war is inevitable” in the UK and that the police response had been “one-sided”. He even compared the UK to the Soviet Union.
The prime minister’s spokesperson said this week that there was “no justification” for those comments.
The British government also called on Elon Musk to act responsibly over his tweets.
In response, Musk repeatedly targeted Starmer on his platform, branding him “two-tier Keir”.
