Elon Musk, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner: X owner takes another swipe at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese over online censorship

Elon Musk has hit back at Anthony Albanese as the pair continue to spar over the Australian government’s attempt to force the US tech billionaire to remove graphic content from his social media platform X.

X, formerly Twitter, was ordered by the Federal Court on Monday to prevent all users from viewing images related to an alleged terrorist attack by a 16-year-old boy on an Assyrian bishop during a live streamed service in a church in the West from Sydney. on April 15.

The company said it had temporarily complied with the order in Australia while it fought it in court – but argued that a global takedown order violates the principle of freedom of expression – a point raised by billionaire Musk.

If he doesn’t comply with a court order to remove posts, X could be fined nearly $800,000 a day and executives could be prosecuted for contempt of court.

On Tuesday, Musk shared a post saying Albanese X had given free advertising after the Prime Minister said it was the only social media platform that had not bowed to the demands of Australia’s eSafety commissioner.

“I want to take a moment to thank the Prime Minister for informing the public that this platform is the only truthful platform,” Musk said.

Musk has openly ridiculed Anthony Albanese on his social media platform X

“Our concern is that if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, as Australia’s ‘eSafety Commissar’ demands, what will stop one country from controlling the entire internet,” Musk said.

“We have already censored the content in question for Australia, pending legal appeal, and it is only stored on servers in the US.

‘Should the eSafety Commissioner (an unelected official) in Australia have authority over all countries on earth?’

Mr Albanese branded Mr Musk “arrogant” for defying the demands of eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant – a former Twitter employee – which he said only enforced “common decency”.

‘He [Mr Musk] is someone who is completely out of touch with the values ​​that Australian families have,” Mr Albanese said.

“He is betting his ego and his dollars on filing a lawsuit for the right to post more violent content that will cause suffering to the people on his platform.

“Other social media operators have accepted the eSafety Commissioner’s decision.

“Social media should certainly have an element of social responsibility,” Mr Albanese said of the eSafety actions. “This is essentially a common sense position from the eSafety Commissioner.”

“What the eSafety Commissioner is doing is doing her job to protect the interests of Australians.

“The idea that anyone would go to court for the right to post violent content on a platform shows how out of touch Mr. Musk is.”

“Social media should have a social responsibility associated with it. Mr. Musk isn’t showing any.”

Asked whether the commissioner could be given stronger powers or whether access to X in Australia should be stopped, the Prime Minister said the government was looking at what action could be taken.

“Nobody wants censorship here – what we want, however, is the application of some common sense so that you don’t show and propagate violence online,” Albanese said.

The opposition has backed stricter laws to crack down on graphic content shared online.

While the eSafety Commissioner already had the power to effectively block the social media site in Australia by allowing telecoms companies to deny access, there were no signs yet of this path being taken, Dr Nicholls said.

Such a blockade would not be unprecedented after telcos proactively cut off access to sites distributing videos of the 2019 Christchurch massacre.

While he supported freedom of speech, Musk was “completely wrong” on the position on terror content, Liberal frontbencher Simon Birmingham said, while independent senator Jacqui Lambie went further, calling him a “social media button.”

“He is harmful – what he does to children and what he does to adults and the nonsense he spreads on X… has gone far enough,” she said.