Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[Valmy]

kek is a twenty year old World of Warcraft meme. It was what the Horde players would appear to say to the Alliance when they said 'lol'.

[Syt]

kek is a twenty year old World of Warcraft meme. It was what the Horde players would appear to say to the Alliance when they said 'lol'.

It's also based on the Korean kekeke for hahaha (which was memed on for Starcraft, so it would make sense for Blizzard to pick it up for their other game when they created the language garbling for WoW enemy players).

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/kek
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/zerg-rush

So it was probably "OMG ZERG RUSH KEKEKE" ==> KEK (at least that's my head canon )

[Syt]

Meanwhile ...

https://www.politico.eu/article/elon-musk-uk-backlash-boost-far-right-activist-tommy-robinson/

Elon Musk faces UK backlash after boosting far-right activist Tommy Robinson
X owner and Donald Trump ally accused of spreading "poison" after he backs jailed activist.

LONDON — Elon Musk is facing fierce criticism from British parliamentarians after he called for far-right ringleader Tommy Robinson to be released from prison.

The X owner and key ally of Donald Trump tweeted Thursday morning that authorities should "free Tommy Robinson."

Robinson, the controversial English Defense League founder whose anti-immigration rallies in the U.K. attract thousands, was jailed for 18 months last October after breaching a court order.

Musk's comments come amid an ongoing feud with the U.K.'s governing Labour Party — and just days after the tech billionaire spoke out in support of Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

"Musk's support not just for Tommy Robinson, but also the AfD in Germany, shows just how big a problem he is for democracy as well as the reputation of those who cosy up to him like Nigel Farage and Liz Truss," Labour MP Stella Creasy — whose constituency saw a major counter-demonstration against the far right amid riots last summer — told POLITICO.

Truss, the former British prime minister, has previously expressed support for Musk and said his proposed Department for Government Efficiency, set to feature in Trump's second presidency, was "needed in Britain."

Reform UK Leader Farage meanwhile met Musk at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in December and has talked up the prospect of receiving a donation from him. Reform — which has been at pains to distance itself from the far right as it takes on Labour and the Conservatives — declined to comment on Musk's latest statements Thursday.

Robinson was imprisoned last year after he admitted to breaching a court order relating to false claims about a Syrian schoolboy he had made in a documentary. Musk on Thursday approvingly shared the documentary to his hundreds of millions of followers on X.

A second Labour MP, granted anonymity to speak candidly, called Musk's language "dangerous," warning that "at a time when communities need to come and work together, we have someone with a lot of influence sowing divisions and spreading hate."

A third Labour MP said it was "so sad people fall for this manipulative rhetoric."

A fourth sought to praise Musk, while drawing a red line over his backing of Robinson, saying: "I don't think Tommy Robinson has anything to say about government efficiency, or anything that reckons with the condition of working people."

They added: "There is something remarkable about Elon Musk's startup spirit. Backing Tommy Robinson is a perversion of it."

Danny Chambers, an MP for the centrist Liberal Democrats and the party's spokesperson on mental health, said it was "really concerning that a billionaire with his own social media platform is supporting a far-right activist."

"Musk has the financial resources and the social media reach to influence the news agenda and the narrative, and so his support for Tommy Robinson could be hugely damaging to our political discourse," Chambers added.

Musk's intervention has also reignited discussion of whether the U.K. government should tighten campaign finance laws to prevent the world's richest man from flooding politics with cash before the next election.

As a U.S. citizen from South Africa, Musk would not be allowed to make direct donations of more than £500 to U.K. political parties. But election finance experts have argued that he could set up a new U.K. registered company or an unincorporated association to sidestep the rules.

Creasy said: "The money and organization that extremists now have access to to spread their poison across the world is a threat that can't be ignored or sidelined.

"It's time not just to enforce and reform campaign finance laws but also to call to account all those who indulge them, encourage them and avoid standing up to them."

While Labour MPs were quick to slam Musk's intervention, Prime Minister Keir Starmer kept out of it.

Unlike in Germany, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz directly hit back at Musk's boosting of the far-right AfD, No. 10 Downing Street steered clear of the row Thursday.

In Musk's latest attack on Labour Thursday, he claimed that the party had failed to initiate an inquiry into historic child abuse in the northern English town of Oldham only because "it will show that those in power were complicit in the cover-up."

He also implied that Starmer — who launched extensive reforms to how the Crown Prosecution Service handles child sex abuse cases — did not do enough to prosecute child grooming gangs when he ran the organization between 2008 and 2013.

In a sign of Musk's growing influence, the opposition Conservatives — voted out of office in July after 14 years in government — spent Thursday echoing his demand for a focus on tackling "rape gangs" in the U.K. with a dedicated public inquiry.

An inquiry into the handling of child sexual abuse in the U.K. already wrapped up in 2022, but the Tories now argue it did not go far enough and have demanded the release of ethnicity data on perpetrators.

[Admiral Yi]

A second Labour MP, granted anonymity to speak candidly, called Musk's language "dangerous," warning that "at a time when communities need to come and work together, we have someone with a lot of influence sowing divisions and spreading hate."

In the culture war/internet era everyone sows divisions and spreads hate.  I wish the left would drop this lame phrase and, at least in this case, focus on the lie at the root of the case.

[Sheilbh]

Meanwhile ...

This is not the first time something like this has happened. Steve Bannon also made a bit push on Tommy Robinson which even Farage pushed back on. I think Robinson is a cause celebre on the US far-right circles, while he is incredibly almost universally unpopular here:


I think the grooming gangs issue is more serious and I think it probably does deserve a national inquiry. There have been lots of inquiries but they've each been for specific towns (Rotherham especially). The Jay inquiry in 20022, for example, was specifically about Rotherham - there were similar scandals at the same time in other places like Keighley, Oxford, Rochdale etc. I think there is a case that this wasn't a series of local failures/problems but national problems.

It is slightly interesting to see these crimes being picked up because of social media - and Americans posting about it. In part because I'm seeing people here who are genuinely surprised by the (appalling) facts from these reports that are being shared - and, as ever, in Britain the scandals are already out there in public documents (like multiple reports into grooming and sexual exploitation of girls) that have been reported. It's just a question of when they get picked/noticed by the wider media. And I think part of that is that talking about them was kind of coded as a bit far-right, a bit Tommy Robinson, a bit culture war-y. A phrase I've seen that I think is right was not a conspiracy of silence, but of murmuring - it was covered, there were reports and inquiries (though less was done). But given the nature of the crimes I think the tone and volume of coverage was always fairly muted - compared with, say, allegations of historic child sexual abuse in entertainment and politics.

On the one hand I'm struck again by the fact that especially as an English speaking country we live on America's internet. I think there was an impact on the left of that of American culture war identity politics issues being very directly picked up in the UK (and a bit of back and forth on the "rainy fascist island" stuff) - I think we're starting to see it on the right too now around grooming, speech, immigration - particularly via Musk.

[Josquius]

I think the grooming gangs issue is more serious and I think it probably does deserve a national inquiry. There have been lots of inquiries but they've each been for specific towns (Rotherham especially). The Jay inquiry in 20022, for example, was specifically about Rotherham - there were similar scandals at the same time in other places like Keighley, Oxford, Rochdale etc. I think there is a case that this wasn't a series of local failures/problems but national problems.

It does....but I think we all believe we know what it will find.
Given the evidence points towards the night-time economy and lack of police regard for lower class girls rather than "Islam innit" I  think I'll be closer to the right answer than those really invested in the issue (obviously, I mean, I thinks wot I thinks)... which will lead to them just disregarding it and screaming about a Liebour cover up, etc.... and keeping the whole issue burning.
I'm not sure what a good outcome of it would be. Where do we guess it could actually lead to positive change?

A second Labour MP, granted anonymity to speak candidly, called Musk's language "dangerous," warning that "at a time when communities need to come and work together, we have someone with a lot of influence sowing divisions and spreading hate."

In the culture war/internet era everyone sows divisions and spreads hate.  I wish the left would drop this lame phrase and, at least in this case, focus on the lie at the root of the case.

What divisions and hate are the left sowing?
All that comes to mind for me are the super fringe corners of reddit with anti-straight gay extremists and that kind of "Wait, this is a thing?" crazy person. These people aren't on anywhere near the same scale as those sowing hate on the right.

Its a useful turn of phrase politically as it puts the sensible right on the spot- do they really want to defend those hateful crazies whose votes they want, or do they risk alienating their sane voters?
This is a huge issue in British politics today with the Tories/Reform situation and other parties being potentially viable options.

[Legbiter]

Meanwhile ...

This is not the first time something like this has happened. Steve Bannon also made a bit push on Tommy Robinson which even Farage pushed back on. I think Robinson is a cause celebre on the US far-right circles, while he is incredibly almost universally unpopular here:


I think the grooming gangs issue is more serious and I think it probably does deserve a national inquiry. There have been lots of inquiries but they've each been for specific towns (Rotherham especially). The Jay inquiry in 20022, for example, was specifically about Rotherham - there were similar scandals at the same time in other places like Keighley, Oxford, Rochdale etc. I think there is a case that this wasn't a series of local failures/problems but national problems.

It is slightly interesting to see these crimes being picked up because of social media - and Americans posting about it.

Yeah the trial transcripts were finally released? Just horrific descriptions one after the other on the timeline yesterday. Also Musk needed to deboost the H-1B debate.

But given the WW II Eastern front scale of these child rapes the native brit response has been rather subdued.

[Sheilbh]

It does....but I think we all believe we know what it will find.
Given the evidence points towards the night-time economy and lack of police regard for lower class girls rather than "Islam innit" I  think I'll be closer to the right answer than those really invested in the issue (obviously, I mean, I thinks wot I thinks)... which will lead to them just disregarding it and screaming about a Liebour cover up, etc.... and keeping the whole issue burning.
I'm not sure what a good outcome of it would be. Where do we guess it could actually lead to positive change?

To a point, in relation to some of the white girls. I'm not sure the extent that applies to the Asian victims (who were probably fewer but it's less clear) and it doesn't always apply to the white girls either.

I think the problem is it repeats the original mistake of not wanting to inquire too deeply because all the wrong people will benefit and for the political consideration of wanting to avoid inflaming community tensions. I think that does a disservice to the victims which makes it the wrong thing to do. But I also think politically it doesn't help in the long term - I always think reality wins and these crimes really happened and there were really significant state failings. I think this is the key example people have when they talk about a "two tier" justice system, I think it builds distrust and not confronting it doesn't mean the political problems go away it just means they fester. Until literally a few months ago this whole scandal on Wikipedia was described as a "moral panic" when it did happen and is still happening.

Having said that it is really difficult. Ideally I wouldn't start from here but I think there is a strong case for a national inquiry producing findings and recommendations that can apply to all police and social services, rather than each council area or constabulary having separate inquiries (not least because there is a really remarkable consistency of crimes and failures). I think it only gets more difficult the longer it is put off and we don't try to do some justice to the victims. Although I would probably wait until Musk has moved onto something else to avoid giving the appearance of being bounced.

Yeah the trial transcripts were finally released? Just horrific descriptions one after the other on the timeline yesterday. Also Musk needed to deboost the H-1B debate.

Nothing is new. None of the information is new. It's all from court jdugements, evidence submitted to inquiries and inquiry reports. Most of it has been in the public domain for many years.

Similarly the mainstream media have covered this. The Times have done multiple frontpage stories on it and the reporter who led this story for them, Andrew Norfolk, has won basically every journalism prize in the country. There was a BBC drama starring Maxine Peake, which won every award going. There have been multiple BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky News documentaries and long-form reported news pieces.

I don't know why but it didn't have significant cut through. People who followed politics were aware but it wasn't something normal people really picked up on and it sounds like an absurd, unbelievable conspiracy theory so if it came up I think a lot of people would write it off. This is common also to, say, the Post Office scandal, Hillsborough, infected blood etc. This is a point the Economist has made, in Britain generally speaking the next scandal is already out there. The facts are in the public domain, it's often already been reported, it's just a question of when someone in the press, or a TV adaptation or something turns it into a story that breaks through to the general consciousness. I'd add it is also a very common theme with the Yorkshire police forces (and frankly this is an area where I am a little conspiracy minded about those forces given their history).

I think it also came out in a drip-drip fashion over many years in multiple times which all sort of blended into one - some were reported heavily, others not so there wasn't a single coherent narrative (again why I think there is a case for a national inquiry).