Tanya Plibersek has branded Elon Musk a “selfish billionaire” after the X owner vowed to defy Australian government demands to remove harmful content from his social media platform.
Musk mocked Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, after she ordered the removal of videos showing the alleged livestream stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel.
Ms Grant warned that failure to ban these posts would see X, formerly Twitter, hit with a “daily fine of $785,000”, but Tesla’s CEO denounced the move.
“Australian censorship commissioner demands *global* content bans,” Musk wrote on X on Saturday.
Now Ms Plibersek has hit back, claiming Mr Musk’s position is ‘incredible’.
Elon Musk (pictured) mocked Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant after she issued a notice about the removal of videos showing the alleged livestream stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel. Tanya Plibersek now labels him a ‘selfish billionaire’
‘This selfish billionaire thinks it’s more important to show what he wants on X or Twitter or whatever you want to call it today (…) than to respect and protect the victims of the crimes shown on social media our Australian community from the damaging consequences of displaying this terrible stuff,” Ms Plibersek told Sunrise.
The Environment Minister said the Albanian Labor government had ‘quadrupled the budget for the eSafety Commissioner’.
The internet safety regulator praises itself as the ‘first government agency committed to keeping its citizens safer online’.
“eSafety has powers in relation to cyberbullying, image-based abuse and illegal and harmful online content,” the website said.
Ms Plibersek said there is now bipartisan support for legislation aimed at tackling misinformation online.
“Last year we tried to introduce a law on misinformation and disinformation,” she added.
‘Unfortunately the Liberals and Nationalists did not support it at the time. Peter Dutton and Susan Ley said they would do that now – that’s good.
“We need to protect Australians from this terrible social media stuff.
“Elon Musk is not dictating to the Australian government what we do with our laws here at home.”
It is not the first time that Musk and Ms Inman Grant, the eSafety commissioner, have had discussions.
Last month, Daily Mail Australia revealed that the online safety watchdog was attempting a Canadian man will delete an ‘offensive’ post about an Australian UN trans expert.
Chris Elston, who goes by the name ‘Billboard Chris’ on expert panel that draws up healthcare guidelines for trans and non-binary people.
In his post, Mr Elston misgendered Cook and made other ‘disparaging’ comments.
He received a ‘take down notice’ from the eSafety Commissioner, but refused to remove the message.
When
With a huge backfire for the eSafety Commissioner, that post alone has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant told reporters last week that while the majority of mainstream social media platforms had engaged with the commissioner over his order to remove videos of the alleged church stabbing, more work needed to be done done.
In response to this publication’s story, Billionaire
X, which Musk bought in 2022 when it was called the Twitter, later revealed that it sued the Australian government for the disposal order to “protect the user’s right to freedom of expression.”
Ms Inman Grant worked for Twitter under the old regime before becoming eSafety Commissioner in 2016. She receives an annual salary of almost $445,000.
Ms Inman Grant told reporters last week that while the majority of mainstream social media platforms had engaged with the commissioner over his order to remove videos of the alleged church stabbing, more needed to be done.
“I am not satisfied that enough is being done to protect Australians from this most extreme and unnecessary violent material circulating online,” she said.
‘That is why I am exercising my powers under the Online Safety Act to formally compel them to remove it.’