Australia’s prime minister has labelled X’s owner, Elon Musk, an “arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law” as the rift deepens between Australia and the tech platform over the removal of videos of a violent stabbing in a Sydney church.
On Monday evening in an urgent last-minute federal court hearing, the court ordered a two-day injunction against X to hide posts globally containing the footage of the alleged stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel on 15 April. The eSafety commissioner had previously directed X to remove the posts, but X had only blocked them from access in Australia pending a legal challenge.
Anthony Albanese on Tuesday said Musk was “a bloke who’s chosen ego and showing violence over common sense”.
“Australians will shake their head when they think that this billionaire is prepared to go to court fighting for the right to sow division and to show violent videos,” he told Sky News. “He is in social media, but he has a social responsibility in order to have that social licence.”
“What the eSafety commissioner is doing is doing her job to protect the interests of Australians. And the idea that someone would go to court for the right to put up violent content on a platform shows how out of touch Mr Musk is,” he said.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“Australians will shake their head when they think that this billionaire is prepared to go to court fighting for the right to sow division and to show violent videos,” he told Sky News.
He also reposted a tweet from a user claiming that Albanese was “advertising” for Elon by mentioning that other platforms had complied with requests to remove the content while X had not.
The federal court has issued the injunction until 5pm on Wednesday 25 April, pending X’s local legal counsel receiving instructions on X’s response to the case.
On Monday night, a spokesperson for the eSafety commissioner said Meta, Google, Microsoft, Snap and TikTok had worked to remove similar content in the past weeks, and eSafety “will continue to use its suite of powers under the Online Safety Act to protect Australians from serious online harms, including extreme violent content”.
The eSafety Commission has been contacted for comment, but in a statement to Guardian Australia, the communications minister, Michelle Rowland, slammed Babet’s response.
Independent senator for Tasmania Jacqui Lambie deleted her X account on Tuesday, telling Sky News that politicians must lead by example.
The original article contains 1,005 words, the summary contains 187 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
