Australia’s eSafety commissioner has obtained a Federal Court injunction to force the removal of harmful content from X, formerly known as Twitter.
The notice required X to take all reasonable steps to ensure the removal of the extremely violent video content of the alleged terrorist act at Wakeley in Sydney on April 15.
The commissioner issued a removal notice for video and images of the attack on April 16. X 0wner and noted “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk responded to these requests by calling the esafety commissioner the “Australian Censorship Commissar”, and refusing to make any changes.
The commissioner responded by obtaining the court injunction on Monday afternoon, legally mandating X remove the content subject to a further hearing before Wednesday evening.
A spokesperson for the commissioner said the takedown order only applied to video of the stabbing of bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, not commentary around the incident.
“Following Monday’s events, eSafety worked cooperatively with other companies, including Google, Microsoft, Snap and TikTok, to remove the same material,” they said.
“Some of these companies have taken additional, proactive steps to reduce the further spreading of the material. We thank them for those efforts. However, eSafety determined last Tuesday that Meta and X Corp were not taking adequate steps to protect Australians from this material. Consequently, eSafety issued Class 1 notices to both companies, formally seeking removal of this material from their platforms.
“In the case of Meta, eSafety was satisfied with its compliance. In the case of X Corp, eSafety was not satisfied the actions it took constituted compliance and sought this injunction from the federal court. The 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.”
Musk is still refusing to comply with the order, taking to X to post a series of memes suggesting his platform is the last bastion of free speech in Australia. Musk’s belligerence highlights the challenges of seeing social media owners complying with other nation’s laws.
Prime minister Anthony Albanese hit back at Musk, calling him “arrogant” and “out of touch”.
“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.
“By and large, people responded appropriately to the calls by the eSafety commissioner. X chose not to.
“This isn’t about freedom of expression, this is about the dangerous implications that can occur when things that are simply not true, that everyone knows is not true, are replicated and weaponised in order to cause division and in this case, to promote negative statements and potentially to just inflame what was a very difficult situation. And social media has a social responsibility.”
Independent senator Jacqui Lambie told ABC News Musk thinks he is above the law, and that he should be jailed.
The X owner thanked the Australian prime minister for endorsing his platform as the only place free speech lives in Australia.
“I’d like to take a moment to thank the PM for informing the public that this platform is the only truthful one,” he said.
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