London’s leftist Mayor Sadiq Khan has joined the long list of political figures queuing up to tell Elon Musk how Twitter should be run in the future, insisting there should be “consequences” for the former president if he is perceived to misbehave on the platform in future.
Speaking from California’s Stanford University on his tour of the United States, Sadiq Khan warned of the potential threat of Elon Musk allowing former President Donald Trump to return to the social media platform.
The leftist Labour Party Politician said: “The first year I was mayor and the first year that Donald Trump became president… the amount of racial abuse I received on social media increased by 2,000 per cent.”
“During those four years he was president, that led to me having to receive police protection and a lot of racial abuse,” Khan added.
Conversely, the London Mayor claimed that once Mr Trump was banned from Twitter and all other major social media platforms, he “received the least amount of racial abuse of anytime over five years.”
Khan said that while Twitter and Facebook were “great”, he stressed the need for “control” and “regulation”.
On Tuesday, Tesla owner Elon Musk, who is in the process of acquiring the Silicon Valley tech giant, said that he would reverse the ban on the former president, describing the move as “morally wrong” and “stupid” in that it only served to amplify President Trump’s voice on the right.
Musk said that he would only seek to permanently ban spam or scam bot accounts and would only seek temporary suspensions for violations, even in the case of potentially criminal posts.
Responding to the idea of the former president returning to the social media site, Kahn said: “Let’s wait and see if Donald Trump has learnt his lesson. If it’s the case that Donald Trump is going to use Twitter responsibly, I think that’s all well and good.”
“If he breaks the rules, there needs to be consequences and we can’t afford a situation where people think social media is where people behave irresponsibly, where you see an increase in not just racism, sexism and misogyny but also division.
“I hope Elon Musk, now he’s in charge of Twitter, understands that.”
Mayor Khan has been one of Donald Trump’s chief critics in the United Kingdom, going so far as to call for the American president to be barred from receiving an official state visit in Britain over Trump’s use of Twitter.
The left-wing politician went on to accuse Trump of using “racism” as a political strategy and that his Make America Great Again slogan was a dog whistle code for Make America “White Again”.
Trump, for his part, branded Khan as a “stone-cold loser” for failing to prevent soaring rates of knife crime in London.
Prior to leaving for his American trip, the London Mayor hosted a celebration of the Islamic holiday of Eid in Trafalgar Square. During the event, Mr Khan once again lashed out at the former president, claiming that the predominantly Muslim crowd in the British capital would be Trump’s “worst nightmare“.
During his U.S. tour, Mr Khan has met with leading left-wing establishment figures, such as failed presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Michael Bloomberg, as well as New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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