Attorney General Richard Hermer has reportedly told his department to stop posting official updates on X, citing concerns that the platform is being used to incite racism and violence. His office last posted on June 12.
For a government office that routinely used X to put official updates in front of the public, the shift is stark: the Attorney General for England and Wales and Advocate General for Northern Ireland has reportedly told his staff to stop posting on the platform.
Richard Hermer’s message to his department was driven by a simple fear—X was being used to incite violence and racism. The last time his office posted on X was on June 12. Before that. it posted relatively frequently. sometimes even more than once a day. sharing updates about the work the government is doing to tackle issues across the region.
Hermer’s decision follows the Southampton and Belfast riots earlier this month. He reportedly believes bad actors are using the website to deliberately sow discord and divide communities. The publications report that he communicated the decision to his staff last week. after a surge of misinformation connected to violence and killings circulating online.
The Observer says the misinformation surge centered on posts about the murder of Henry Nowak. who was fatally stabbed by a Sikh man. along with the separate stabbing of a Dublin man by a Sudanese national. As those stories spread, the platform was also used by far right activists to push disinformation and hate toward immigrants.
The reporting also points to broader amplification risks on X. Elon Musk, the owner of the platform, is described as further amplifying far right activists’ voices. Some high-profile personalities were reportedly spreading doctored bodycam footage from the Nowak case. while Grok apparently wrongly identified two cops involved in the Nowak case—information that then circulated widely.
Hermer has publicly argued against division tied to controversial political battles. telling staff in a recent speech about Britain staying with the European Court of Human Rights after Brexit: “We simply cannot let a very small group of crypto-funded millionaires of this world get away with using the debate about the ECHR or drawing closer to the EU to sow more division in this country — we cannot allow them to draw lines between our communities.”.
Now. those concerns about manufactured division are reportedly landing in a concrete newsroom decision: on X. his office would only use the platform to correct misinformation. The Observer’s report suggests this may be the first time a UK government department has quit X entirely. though it notes that some female MPs individually left the site after it came out that Grok was allowing users to generate images of real women and children wearing revealing clothing.
The sequence—riots, misinformation spikes, manipulated footage, and technology compounding errors—ends with a reluctant kind of silence. For the Attorney General’s department, the question is no longer whether X can be used to communicate. It’s whether being on the platform helps anyone, or whether it only becomes another tool for harm.
UK government Richard Hermer Attorney General X Twitter misinformation racism violence Grok Henry Nowak Southampton riots Belfast riots Elon Musk cyber safety