Far-right figures have threatened action – including street riots – after the UK government threatened to ban Twitter/X over potential images of undressed children. At the same time, US politicians have threatened to sanction the whole UK if the ban were implemented.

We will ‘fight X ban on the streets’

Owner Elon Musk didn’t want to change the platform’s ‘Grok’ AI to prevent users asking it to remove clothes from images. Keir Starmer said he wanted regulator Ofcom to use “use all its powers – up to and including an effective ban” if X did not agree to the change, citing the risk of the AI being used to create child abuse images.

Starmer’s threat prompted far-right MP Rupert Lowe to vow to fight the ban in Parliament. Extremist Tommy Robinson said he and his followers would “fight it on the streets”. Neither, of course, mentioned that the proposed ban was to protect children:

Not to be outdone, Trumpian far-righter Anna Paulina Luna threatened to sanction the whole UK if the ban is imposed:

Apparently, while the US regime thought banning TikTok to protect Israel was perfectly fair, anyone considering banning a US platform is beyond the pale, even when the reason given is to protect children. Luna describes herself as a ‘right to life extremist‘, but like many Republicans perhaps her concern for children ends once they’re born.

Of course, it would be foolish to think that ‘kid-starver’ Starmer gives a four-x for protecting children. However, he never saw an opportunity for censorship that he didn’t like and he is perfectly to exploit the idea of protecting children to push through political censorship like his so-called ‘Online Safety Act’.

Will it come to that?

In the end, X appears to have tried to settle the issue before any ban. Not be preventing people from AI-stripping women and kids, but by making them pay for the privilege. Victims’ groups have described the move as ‘insulting’.

We are left then with an ugly spectacle all round. Starmer pretends to care about children to take down a platform he doesn’t like; the far-right threatens violence and sanctions to protect a platform that was prepared to put kids at risk; while X simply moves its child-porn-enabled AI behind a paywall.

If nothing else, it’s a unique way of showing the awfulness of all stripes of fascist – red, blue, teal or orange.

By Skwawkbox

This post was originally published on Canary.