MP grills X official over extreme messages after being told to ‘swing on a gibbet’
An MP has confronted social media bosses over extreme messages received by politicians after she was threatened with being hung.
Emily Darlington said the comment was made after she shared a petition to save her local Post Office on X last November and still hasn’t been removed – despite reporting it.
The same account has continued to post racist, misogynistic and homophobic comments, she said.
The Labour MP was speaking at the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, which grilled tech giants X, TikTok, Google and Meta on Tuesday as part of an inquiry into online misinformation and harmful algorithms.
Ms Darlington said: “In November I posted a tweet about my petition to save my local Post Office.
“This was a reply from one person: ‘You are a traitor to the British people and you will swing oh so slowly on a gibbet’.
“I had to look up what a gibbet is, it’s not a pleasant thing.”
A gibbet is a form of gallows from which the bodies of executed criminals were hung to public view.
Ms Darlington said she reported the post as harmful and violent speech, in violation of X’s rules that state expressing desire for violence is not allowed.
Addressing Wifredo Fernandez, X’s senior director for government affairs, she said: “These are your safety rules. No action was taken, no action is still taken, the post is still up.”
She went onto list other violent and racist comments made by the account.
She asked Mr Fernandez: “Is this acceptable, under the guise of free speech on X these days?”
The X official said the comments are “abhorrent” and he will have his teams take a look – but that couldn’t make any assurances the account will be removed.
Ms Darlington said the comments are “not unique” and many other MPs get messages “from these kinds of accounts”.
“[They] report them and no action is taken”, she said.
Elsewhere in the session, MPs clashed with Meta representatives over the implementation of end-to-end encryption – with Labour’s Paul Waugh accusing the platform of turning Facebook Messenger into “Jeffrey Epstein’s private island”.
Meta’s removal of third-party fact-checkers from its platforms also came in for criticism, with MPs saying it will allow “racist misinformation” to spread.
In January, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg announced the change, saying at the time that fact-checkers were too “politically biased” and were having an impact on “free expression” – a move seen by many as an attempt to get closer to the pro-free speech stance of the incoming Donald Trump administration.
