X owner Elon Musk.A cabinet minister has hit out at Elon Musk’s X platform after the company snubbed a summit aimed at tackling doxxing on social media.
Culture secretary Lisa Nandy hauled tech bosses in for a meeting on Tuesday following the abuse of RNLI staff online.
Any-migrant campaigners have targeted the lifesaving charity for helping asylum seekers trying to cross the English Channel from France.
In some instances, the personal details of RNLI workers have been put online – a practice known as doxxing.
Appearing on LBC this morning, Nandy said: “I’m really, really very angry about the treatment of RNLI charity volunteers and staff who’ve been attacked online.
“They’ve had their names and their photographs published for doing the life-saving work that they’re doing. We’ve also seen this happening to lots of other people as well.”
She said police officers and journalists had also had their details made public online and vowed to crack down on the problem.
“I was astonished when I took on responsibility for this a few weeks ago to find that publishing people’s addresses online is not automatically a criminal offence and isn’t automatically taken down by the social media companies,” she said.
On yesterday’s summit with social media firms, Nandy said: “X didn’t even bother to turn up, which I think tells you everything about their disgraceful attitude to their own moral and social obligations. And the government is determined to act.
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