The UK's media regulator is facing growing pressure to investigate Elon Musk's promotion of the controversial film Citizen Vigilante, with Muslim organisations arguing that its mass distribution on X raises serious questions over whether UK law can be used to curb content that allegedly incites anti-Muslim hatred .
The film, directed by German filmmaker Uwe Boll and starring Armie Hammer, was uploaded in full by Musk to his X account on 25 June, making it freely available for around 48 hours to his more than 240 million followers. It has since continued to circulate through reposts, including by UK-based accounts, prompting complaints that the platform amplified violent anti-Muslim content to a mass audience without age restrictions or classification.
The issue has prompted intervention from the Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND) organisation and the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), both of which have written to UK media regulator Ofcom urging the regulator to investigate whether X breached its duties under the Online Safety Act.
While neither organisation is calling for the film itself to be banned, they argue that Musk's decision to distribute it raises broader questions about whether X's content moderation systems are operating effectively, particularly when controversial material is posted by the platform's owner.
MEND CEO Abdullah Saif said in comments to The New Arab : "The Online Safety Act does not prohibit films. It places binding duties on platforms to keep people safe from illegal content, including material capable of stirring up racial and religious hatred, which is a priority offence under the Act."
Saif said that the organisation's legal question to Ofcom was whether "X met those duties when its own owner distributed this film, free and without any controls, to a UK audience".
"Our letter is about whether the law protects Muslim communities from content that dramatises and celebrates their murder, at a time when that hostility is already spilling into our streets, Belfast and Edinburgh are cases in point," he added.
Released this year, Citizen Vigilante follows a wealthy American landlord in Europe who embarks on a campaign of vigilante killings against Muslim immigrants portrayed as criminals, rapists and welfare cheats, while public officials are depicted as protecting them.
As his killings mount, the protagonist becomes an unlikely folk hero.
Critics have accused the film of perpetuating anti-immigrant and specifically anti-Muslim stereotypes. Variety described it as a "morally bankrupt" piece of exploitation, while MEND argues that the film's "framing is specifically anti-Muslim rather than generically concerned with crime".
Adbullah Saif echoed the sentiment, telling The New Arab that "This is not some edgy art or legitimate commentary on migration. It is a work that depicts and endorses the slaughter of a Muslim family and attributes the abuse of women to our faith."
Among the scenes highlighted in MEND's complaint is one in which the protagonist enters the home of a Muslim family and slaughters all its members, including unarmed relatives. The organisation also points to dialogue attributing the sexual assault of women to the teachings of the Qur'an and Islamic values.
"We think this is content capable of amounting to the stirring up of racial and religious hatred, and we will not soften that description to make anyone more comfortable," Saif said.
According to Boll, the film was denied an age classification in Germany because authorities considered it to incite violence against migrants. It has not been classified for theatrical release in the UK.
Musk has, in recent years, come to support numerous far-right parties and causes around the world, particularly those that traffick in "Islamisation" and "Great Replacement theory" conspiracies.
In its letter sent to Ofcom on Thursday, MEND said the regulator should examine whether X had complied with its illegal-content duties under the Online Safety Act, which requires platforms to assess and mitigate the risk of priority illegal content, including material capable of stirring up racial or religious hatred.
It also questioned whether X's internal safety systems treated content promoted by Musk in the same way as material posted by ordinary users.
"The concern is sharpened by the identity of the disseminator," the letter states. "The content was not posted by an anonymous user evading moderation, but boosted by the platform's own owner."
Abdullah Saif said that the organisation is "testing whether the Online Safety Act has any teeth," adding, "Does that law apply to Elon Musk, or only to everyone else?"
MEND further argued that the film's promotion came during a period of heightened tensions affecting Muslim communities in Britain, citing recent anti-migrant unrest in Belfast and violence in parts of Scotland, and warned that "the mass distribution of a film that dramatises, incites and celebrates the murder of Muslims" risks normalising hostility towards Muslims.
Noting Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy's departure from X, despite being in charge of the ministry involved in media media regulation, Saif noted: "A Muslim family targeted by a film celebrating their murder cannot log off from the consequences in the real world. If two government departments find X intolerable, the question of whether the law compels that platform to be safe for the rest of us is unavoidable."
"If the answer turns out the law can't compel it, the public deserves to know this law is utterly useless."
Separately, the Muslim Council of Britain accused Ofcom of failing to act over Musk's promotion of the film.
"The Muslim Council of Britain has written to Ofcom asking why it has failed to take regulatory action against X for posting the film Citizen Vigilante," the organisation said in a statement. "The movie is replete with Islamophobic tropes and has fuelled a surge in hatred."
It added that "failure to act in such clear-cut cases means that there is two-tier regulation and that Ofcom is becoming a participant in the deliberate fracturing of British society".