Joe Rogan wades into riots row as commentator compares UK to ‘Soviet Russia’ – and Elon Musk shares clip

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US commentator Joe Rogan has waded in on the government’s response to the riots sweeping the UK, comparing the country to “Soviet Russia” in a clip shared by tech billionaire Elon Musk.

Musk, dubbed “deeply irresponsible” for a barrage of attacks on the government’s attempts to tackle violent disorder in the UK, reposted the clip which shows Rogan making unsubstantiated claims about policing in England.

Speaking on his podcast, the Joe Rogan Experience, the commentator hit out at what he dubbed “terrible government overreach”, falsely claiming 4,000 people in England have been arrested for “thought crimes”.

Around 500 people have been arrested during disorder linked to the far-right, which began following the killing of three young girls in Southport after social media posts falsely claimed the suspect was a Muslim immigrant. A number of those relate to activity on social media but others include violent disorder, assault, punching police and burglary.

Rogan claimed: “You’re seeing it in England now, with terrible government overreach. People talk about soviet Russia, like how bad Russia is in terms of cracking down on thought police and cracking down on bad tweets and things like that.

“There’s something like 4,000 people in England have been arrested for thought crimes where they’ve said things online that people find to be a hateful thing or a problematic thing. And I think it’s only 200 in Russia.”

“The fact that they’re comfortable with finding people who have said something that they disagree with and putting them in a f****** cage in England in 2024 is really wild.”

Labour MP Dawn Butler told The Independent that Rogan’s “blatant misinformation” risks emboldening the far right, adding that there is a “clear difference” between free speech and hate speech. 

While the timeframe and basis of the claims are not clear, last year a debunked tweet went viral claiming that 3,300 arrests had been made in the UK for social media posts, while saying just 411 had been made in Russia. The claim about arrests in Russia was relying on figures from 2017 and was referring to the number of criminal proceedings, rather than arrests. The UK figure – also from 2017 – was referring to arrests under the broader category of online malicious communications, not specifically for social media posts.

Arrests in the UK and Russia are made for different reasons, with Russian internet users facing far greater restrictions on their use of social media. Rogan’s clip, shared overnight, already has 1.5 million views.

Responding, Ms Butler said: “This blatant misinformation is worrying, it's incredibly irresponsible for individuals with such large followings to share false and ridiculous claims about our country.

“It shows the danger of how easily fake news spreads across social media and I fear it will only embolden the far right, resulting in more hatred and abuse.

“We all value and want to protect free speech, but there is a clear difference between that and hate speech. Hate speech, including online, must always be taken seriously and prosecuted fully, as we cannot allow people to be targeted because of their race, religion or identity.”

She added: “I receive racism, abuse and threats regularly - as shown in my weekly Block of the Week feature on X - so I know the very real dangers. I have long called for tougher action and the Online Safety Act is welcome.

“Social media companies must do much more to take responsibility and clamp down on hateful content on their platforms - it's time they were properly regulated to ensure they comply with our British laws.”

New regulation of social media platforms – the Online Safety Act – became law in the UK last year but has not yet fully come into effect.

Once in place, it will require platforms to take “robust action” against illegal content, including around offences such as inciting violence.

But individuals can already be arrested under Section 127 of the Communications Act, which makes it illegal to send, via a public communications network, any communication that is either grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character. The offence also covers the spread of purposefully misleading communications.

In recent days Elon Musk, the owner of X, has been heavily criticised for posts about the disorder in the wake of the Southport stabbings.

The billionaire was called “deeply irresponsible” by justice secretary Heidi Alexander for posting that “civil war is inevitable” in the UK – something she said was “unconscionable”.

On Thursday, he reposted an image of a fake headline about the UK’s response to riots, posing as a story from the Telegraph.

“Keir Starmer considering building ‘emergency detainment camps’ on the Falkland Islands,” the headline read, with the subheading claiming the camps would be used to detain prisoners from the riots.

While Musk deleted it shortly after reposting it, it had been viewed more than a million times in the first 15 minutes.