Question Time viewers have voiced their outrage after Ecotricity founder and Labour donor Dale Vince shared his thoughts on the actions of Axel Rudakubana following his murder of three young girls at a dance party in Southport last year.
Rudakubana, 18, will spend the next 52 years behind bars after he pleaded guilty to the atrocities of July last year in which Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and Bebe King, six, all lost their lives in the knife attack.
On the BBC panel show, Vince was joined by Lucy Powell MP, David Davis MP, and columnist Matthew Parris.
“How can we prevent tragedies like Southport from happening again?” was the question posed to the panel by Fiona Bruce as the show kicked off in Stockport on Thursday night.
Powell insisted the Labour government would do everything in its power to find answers regarding Rudakubana in its public inquiry, conceding there may have been steps missed that could’ve addressed the murderer’s behaviour in the years before the horrific crimes.
Parris offered a more “robust” defence of the government, downplaying the role Prevent could’ve played in stopping Rudakubana after it was revealed the teenager was referred to the government body three times before the murders.
BBC Question Time: Dale Vince called for stricter controls over social media
BBC
The journalist went on to brand Rudakubana a “crazy butcher” and a “psychopath” but conceded that people like him will always exist and there’s “a limit” to what government can do to stop them.
Meanwhile, Davis conceded we can do “something” in terms of knives, but admitted it was near-impossible to stop all knives in the same way that gun control was rolled out in the UK.
“The only thing I think one could do is to make Prevent more effective,” he suggested before Bruce questioned Davis on the fact that Radukubana was deemed by a judge not to be acting in line with a “terrorist cause”.
Davis pushed back on Bruce’s point by bringing up the Al-Qaeda manual found in the killer’s home but the BBC host argued that Radubukana also looked at material relating to organisations like the IRA and MI5 as well as material mocking Judaism and Islam. Nevertheless, Davis said Prevent should alter its criteria for intervention.
Elon Musk came under particular fire from Dale Vince
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Bruce then turned to one audience member who suggested some responsibility should be held by the parents in these situations. The Question Time star then asked Vince for his opinions.
But rather than address the guest’s concerns from just seconds earlier, Vince outlined his main gripe with the circumstances that led to the Southport killings – the part social media played.
“The discussion so far has overlooked what I think to a large degree is the root course or a big contributing factor, which is social media,” the former Just Stop Oil donor began.
“I think this guy was radicalised to a considerable extent by content on social media. He got his Al-Qaeda manual from social media, his recipe for ricin from social media, he watched violent videos on social media.
“Keir Starmer talked this week about the rise in violent content on social media and I think one of the biggest things we can do to prevent this happening in the future is to control social media properly and we don’t do that, at the moment.
“I think the platforms run by (Elon) Musk [X] and (Mark) Zuckerberg [Meta] for example are promoting extreme content, extreme views – Musk is trying to interfere with our democracy right now through his platform X. And of course, the guy got his murder weapon from Jeff Bezos [Amazon].
“You look at these three tech giants of the world, and we don’t control social media well enough. We talked earlier about how we have to keep pace with AI, but we haven’t kept pace with social media.
“It’s a supernatural force, it’s outside of the boundaries of our nation but it has a really big impact. And after the terrible event, Musk stoked the riots with content on social media.”
Vince received murmurs of applause from the crowds before Bruce moved on to speak to more audience members.
Soon after, the show’s official X account posted a clip of Vince’s speech onto its page and a little over 12 hours later, it had been viewed over 450,000 times.
As such, many viewers were quick to lambast Vince for his targeting of social media companies rather than other factors when trying to identify the failings that led to Radubakana’s monstrous act.
Ripping apart Vince’s argument, one X user wrote in response: “I have access to Amazon all day long, and yet I don’t go and stab children at a dance party. I have access to social media all day long and yet I don’t go and stab children at a dance party. I’m not sure who this 60 year old man dressed as a teenager is but he is either dishonest or monumentally stupid.”
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“One of the biggest things we can do to prevent this happening in the future is to control social media properly”
Entrepreneur Dale Vince says tech giants are “promoting extreme content” and had a role in influencing the Southport attacker and the following riots#bbcqt pic.twitter.com/k4qivB6wZW
— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) January 23, 2025
Others accused Vince of pushing an “agenda” of censorship and control, with a second writing: “The first thing leftists do when they gain any amount of power is shut down free speech. Every time. Without fail. Leftist movements cannot survive the free exchange of ideas.”
“Using the horrors of Southport to try and push a political agenda. Sick,” a third criticised before a fourth weighed in: “Shameful to use this tragedy as an authoritarian power grab. Trying to use mental gymnastics to conclude you need to censor and control speech.”
Meanwhile, others put the BBC in their sights instead, criticising the broadcaster for having Vince on the panel.
“It’s desperate times. The BBC has to resort to ***** like Vince to try and push its agenda,” one viewer complained while another raged: “Ahhh the @BBCNews pushing control of social media and information. Who would’ve thought eh.”
Soon after Question Time’s broadcast, Vince took to X to directly address the complaints made about his argument.
The energy tycoon penned: “Social media content does real harm – Southport shows us that. Toxic content is a business model for people like Musk and Zuckerberg. I say make them responsible for their content.
“Social media needs to be regulated. That’s not Censorship that’s Sensible.” (sic)