Cross posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/13351707

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.

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5 points

So if shitter didn’t think it was appropriate, why did they ever sign saying they agreed to it?

This was a terrorist act, it’s violent videos, no self respecting platform would want that content on there anyway, and why is it that shitter is the only platform that has a problem with this one?

The other platforms all took it down without even needing to be asked

Yes Australia doesn’t have a great history when it comes to censorship, but musk is a deplorable human for fighting this one and it’s a strange hill to die on

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3 points

What point are you trying to make here? I’ve already stated that the content is objectionable, and that ideally Xitter should have taken it down themselves. The problem I, and everybody else here, has is that Australia does not have the authority to unilaterally decide what content the entire world may or may not access. This is regardless of the video content and it would be nice if you could discuss the actual point.

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3 points

Shitter gave them the authority when they signed an agreement saying they would do the very thing you’re upset Australia is asking them to do

Either they never should have signed, should announce publically that they no longer support and no longer wish to be a signatory to the statement, or should abide.

They can’t sign things saying they will do everything to help remove these videos globally, and then get upset the first time someone asks them to. It doesn’t matter if it’s Australia or another party to the agreement, they agreed to it.

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3 points

Sure. If the Christchurch group or Aussie govt wants to call them out for not honouring their agreement, shame them, kick them out, whatever, that’s fine. I’m all for that. Fuck Xitter. I fully understand there’s nothing noble about their motives. There is however a difference between that and legally forcing a platform to censor content worldwide. Australia is claiming legal authority over the entire world, how do you not see the issue there?

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