As concern grow over the role social media played in spreading disturbing images and fuelling anger continued to grow on Wednesday as police and community leaders urged calm, Elon Musk’s X will face no immediate action to remove a mass of posts inciting violence in Northern Ireland for at least two months, despite widespread condemnation of the platform and its billionaire owner.
Locals from ethnic minorities were targeted in what one Northern Ireland MP called “a race-based pogrom”.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed to crack down on anyone fuelling such divisions and said there was no justification for the scenes of violence and disorder.
Ministers plan to amend the Online Safety Act to require social media firms to act more quickly to remove inflammatory content during riots or other crises, but this will not take effect until mid-July at the earliest.
In the meantime, the government will leave any official reprimand of X to Ofcom. The media regulator is awaiting a first quarterly report on compliance from the platform, but this is not due for at least two months.
Further protests unfolded on Wednesday night after Hadi Alodid, a 30-year-old Sudanese asylum seeker was charged with the attempted murder of Stephen Ogilvie.
Appearing at Belfast magistrates, he was also charged with threatening to kill an NHS radiographer and possessing a knife.
The family of Ogilvie, who lost his left eye in the attack, appealed for calm, saying that while they were “completely devastated” by what had happened to him, they rejected disorder as a response.
“We are aware of the tensions and talk of protests following this incident,” they said in a statement shared via Phillip Brett, the Democratic Unionist MLA for Belfast North. “We want to make it absolutely clear that overnight unrest is not welcome, and peaceful protest is the only way forward.
“We have many migrants who make a deeply valuable contribution to our country, including in our healthcare system and hospitality sector, and we depend on them to make our country work. We do not want this terrible tragedy to be used to divide people or fuel hostility.”
After Musk and other far-right agitators, including Tommy Robinson, called for demonstrations in response to the attack, among those forced to flee their homes were two Ugandan care workers, who were rescued after a church pastor pleaded with a mob of rioters to allow the women to leave.
Musk has rejected claims he is to blame for inciting disorder in Belfast. On X, he shared a post that argued the “very deliberate policy of mass uncontrolled immigration and open borders” is inflaming tensions – and not social media.
On Wednesday, Ofcom published an open letter to X and other online content providers, reminding them of their responsibilities under the law to not allow incitement to take place.