Lisa Nandy has announced her decision to remove herself and her department from X (Image: Getty)
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has been slammed for removing herself and her department from Elon Musk‘s social media platform, X (formerly Twitter), this week. Discussing the growing backlash on Talk TV, Baroness Claire Fox – who serves as the director of the Academy of Ideas – called Nandy’s latest move “hypocritical”.
“I’d remind Lisa Nandy that she runs the department for DCMS – culture, media and sport – and this is a huge media platform,” Fox told Talk TV’s Kevin O’Sullivan. “The idea that she can just go ‘Oh, it’s not the kind of media I like’ is, as you suggest, there’s something sinister about it.
“The hypocrisy is that she said, ‘Oh well, X was set up for free speech and free expression,’ but then she goes on to say, ‘But because this platform is full of misinformation and abuse, I’m storming off’. Well, we know that misinformation and abuse are two words the government regularly uses and weaponises in order to silence other people, and to actually deprive them of free speech.
“When she says she wants meaningful debate, this is the Labour government we’re talking about. When have we ever seen the Labour government opening up meaningful debate?” Fox continued.
“We all know X can be a sewer, we also know it can be a place where you actually swap ideas. It’s also a place where politicians and government departments can be held to account by ordinary punters, voters, maybe people who want to criticise their decisions. So, just removing yourself from that actually just forces the government into yet another echo chamber where they won’t be answerable to the public square.”
A humiliating blow to Nandy, Fox’s comments came just hours after the MP announced her decision to leave X on Thursday afternoon.
“I’ve decided to leave this platform and my Department will too,” she began her statement. “A platform originally designed for free speech and expression now favours abuse and misinformation over meaningful debate. It isn’t healthy for our democracy or our communities and I don’t want to support it.”