Musk fights Australia over content removal requests

FAfter ending his feud with a Brazilian Supreme Court judge, Elon Musk is taking his next fight to the top of the government. The owner of

Just days after a man with a knife killed six people in a shopping center earlier this month, Australia was rocked by another stabbing incident in the suburbs of Sydney when, on April 15, a bishop and a priest were stabbed during a live-streamed sermon. Graphic images of the attack, which the government considered terrorism, quickly circulated online and provoked riots near the crime scene church.

On April 16, Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant ordered social media companies X and Meta to take down the videos within 24 hours, under the powers of the country’s government. Online Security Law. “We know that every minute counts, and the longer this content is out there, the more it will be reshared, the more the speed and virality will continue, and we need to curb that,” she said. he said. “This is truly devastating content that cannot go unnoticed and causes serious emotional, mental and psychological harm.”

Meta reportedly acted quickly. “Our priority is to protect people who use our services from seeing this horrific content, even if bad actors are determined to draw attention to it,” a spokesperson said. the Guardian. But X took a different approach.

On April 19 declaration, the platform’s Global Government Affairs team said it believed the eSafety Commissioner’s order was “not within the scope of Australian law” and that certain posts ordered removed “did not violate X’s rules on violent speech.” The statement said that 500,000 dollars). .

“While X respects a country’s right to enforce its laws within its jurisdiction, the eSafety Commissioner does not have the authority to dictate what content X users can view globally. We will vigorously challenge this illegal and dangerous approach in court,” the statement said. “Global takedown orders go against the very principles of a free and open Internet and threaten freedom of expression around the world.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese supported the Electronic Security Commission during a Press conference on Monday, saying he found it “extraordinary that X chose not to comply and is trying to plead his case.”

“This is not about freedom of expression,” Albanese said, pointing to the spread of misinformation surrounding the stabbing that he said was contributing to divisions and inflaming the already difficult situation. “Social media has a social responsibility.”

Musk responded with a flurry of posts on X: jokingly thanking to the Prime Minister for bringing his company to the attention – which he suggests means “true”- by name and calling it is “absurd that any country would try to censor the entire world”.

An eSafety Commission spokesperson said the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that last week’s order was directed at to reduce “material diffusion”.

The Commission sought an injunction against The court, saying it needed more time to respond, guaranteed a two-day injunction requiring X to hide the content from all users worldwide until Wednesday at 5pm local time, when the matter will be considered further.

In a series of interviews on Tuesday, Albanese again expressed support for the Electronic Security Commission and responded to Musk: “We will do whatever it takes to stand up to this arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law, but also above common decency.” , he said. counted ABC. “The idea that someone would go to court for the right to put violent content on a platform shows how Mr.

In Australia Today showAlbanese continued to criticize Musk, calling him a “selfish man” who “is saying more about himself than anything else.”

“He is putting his ego and investing his billionaire dollars into legal action for the right to put out more violent content that will sow social division and cause suffering to the people on his platform,” Albanese said. “Nobody wants censorship here. What we want, however, is the application of a little common sense… It’s certainly not too much to ask.”

Meanwhile, Musk continued to argue that he doesn’t believe he is “above the law” but rather that X must only comply with removal orders within the country of its jurisdiction and that global removal orders are “improper.”

“No president, prime minister or judge,” said Musk, naming positions of power with which he was happy to pick fights, “has authority over the entire Earth!”