London’s Metropolitan Police commissioner has threatened to charge foreigners for “whipping up hatred” online, naming X owner Elon Musk as someone who could be prosecuted. “We will throw the full force of the law at people. And whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you,” Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley told Sky News on Dec. 13. He said that “Being a keyboard warrior does not make you safe from the law,” and named “the likes of Elon Musk” as potential targets for investigation.
As of Friday, Dec. 13, more than 700 people had been arrested, and more than 300 charged, over their alleged participation in anti-immigration riots, which kicked off after a teenager of Rwandan descent killed three children and injured ten others in a stabbing spree in the town of Southport late last month. Musk, commenting on the arrests, reportedly “shared a series of memes comparing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to a Nazi officer and the British government to the totalitarian dictatorship of George Orwell’s 1984,” according to several news sites.
