The Last (Or First?) Temptation of Starmer

The condition of the United Kingdom (UK) could be accurately described as early-stage clinical depression.

What is interesting about this is that the facts do not always correspond with public sentiment. For example, the economy is – more than anything else – underperforming, not exactly tanking (yet), and while its elected custodians do not possess the confidence of the electorate, they are neither brazenly corrupt nor (openly) Marxist. Things still work, most of the time splutteringly, but the vast majority of complaints about things such as transport emphasise the cost, not reliability.

What UK citizens appear to be most upset about is the transition from good to (just below) average across most of public life, something about which they were not consulted. Regressive shifts are not new, but when quality of life appears to decline at the same time as becoming more expensive, it invariably prompts deep levels of frustration that extend beyond politics into issues such as community cohesion or trust in authorities.

This frustration is important. Firstly, a nation must be allowed to express its anxieties, doubts, and even anger when such obvious change is so constantly occasioned upon it. Secondly, it applies pressure to the instrumentation of government, particularly policy. Finally, a government entertaining volleys of grievance is the prime indicator of a mature, civilised society defined by openness or the exchange of new ideas.

So, if Keir Starmer’s government thinks it's onto a winner by suggesting the social media platform X could be banned, I’m afraid the country’s present condition could mutate into something much worse.

Nudity

The most recent trouble began with the platform’s artificial intelligence feature, Grok, which can be made to dress or undress individuals in photographs with a simple prompt. Unfortunately, bad actors would always seize this in pursuit of their own, mostly sick, proclivities, taking the entire trend – which started with amusing intentions – down with it.

As the distribution of illegal and exploitative material was always a prospect, the onus was upon the platform to meet these urges with predictive publishing tools identifying and neutralising threats before they were posted. While Grok’s abilities to clothe or undress people are quirky, the supportive technology is virtually non-existent, which has left the platform scrambling to code at the same time as politicians are circling to condemn it or warn of severe consequences – one of which includes an outright ban.

But this would be an irreversibly daft decision, and one that is entirely possible in the context of others relating to online safety, most prominently the newest act in the UK.

But politicians’ antipathy toward X and its owner is clearly not just established on the grounds of user safety. In less than two weeks of a new year, three Labour politicians have already been “community note”-d by my count; these people loathe X because it no longer protects them through ideologically aligned moderators who shadow-banned and censored at will.

Scrutiny

The same level of scrutiny is not applied to Bluesky, the platform to which offended users scrambled the moment Elon Musk purchased Twitter, as X used to be known.

There’s no real comparison: by its own admission, Bluesky has a serious child abuse and exploitation material problem and is struggling to find a way to curb and police it better. Oddly, Bluesky was exempted from the Australian government’s recent decision to ban specific social media platforms for under-16s – the equivalent of a police authority announcing a new strategy to remove all criminals from the street, with the exception of rapists.

What Bluesky doesn’t possess, however, are legions of thinkers critical to Establishment narratives. There, discussions range from describing the word “zen” as anti-Asian sentiment, cultural appropriation, privilege, no borders, critical race and other theories about conventional and acceptable modern life apparently rooted in things such as the slave trade – if not full-blown communism. On X, discussions are prickly, reactive, often sour, and openly hostile to a political elite who many users believe do not deserve their positions, let alone their pensions.

Having enjoyed levels of weak scrutiny for so long, this elite is understandably shaken, with many choosing not to engage at all.

So, to suggest Ofcom’s decision to initiate an investigation into X appeared in a vacuum is wrong: it is now obvious that the politicians and regulators and their supporters in the media were merely awaiting the right opportunity to pounce.

Aloof

Because the Prime Minister is so aloof (intentionally) and allergic to criticism, he’s been looking to allies to support any potential action against X. Invariably, he’s been talking to Mark Carney in Canada and Anthony Albanese in Australia, who both suffer identically tenuous grasps of reality.

Domestically, he’ll find support from Ed Davey, leader of the Establishment Liberal Democrats, who has been an X victim for some time thanks to his incompetent role in the country’s largest miscarriage of justice in history (the Sub-Postmaster scandal).

Then there is the regulator Ofcom, strengthened with suspiciously rapid speed during 2020’s first lockdown, whose officials have previously been exposed as biased and ideological. Ofcom enjoys the support of an obedient, legacy media who frequently badger it with examples of their upstart opponents’ alleged infractions of broadcasting or publishing rules.

Seen from above, there are only two ways to interpret X’s possible fate in the UK.

The first is of a ruling class that simply cannot accommodate the obligations of democracy any longer. This is true of many other nations. But the second is more local: it hints at a society slowly dying, and worse – that a moral imperative can be found in killing or taking out certain uncomfortable, awkward things, and that once that is accomplished, society will be mended.

For many, X is a refuge, the one place where criticism can be aired – often the one place where politicians’ lies can be exposed. Deliberately collapsing it, while maintaining favour to Bluesky and other platforms that are not as assertive, will be an error of lasting, if not tragic consequences.

In fact, it may well just be the one spark commentators fear will force the country from clinical depression to unhinged fury – or worse.