Photo Credit: Susan Walsh
Tech billionaire Elon Musk accused Australia of censorship after an Australian judge ruled that his social media platform X must block users worldwide from accessing video of a bishop being stabbed in a Sydney church.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese responded Tuesday by describing Musk as an “arrogant billionaire” who considered himself above the law and was out of touch with the public.
X Corp., the tech company rebranded in 2023 by Musk after he bought Twitter, announced last week it would fight in court Australian orders to take down posts relating to a knife attack on Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in an Assyrian Orthodox church as a service was being streamed online on April 15.
The material was geoblocked from Australia but available elsewhere.
But the regulator that made the orders, Australia’s eSafety Commission, which describes itself as the world’s first government agency dedicated to keeping people safer online, successfully applied to the Federal Court in Sydney for a temporary global ban on sharing the video of the bishop being stabbed.
In an after-hours hearing Monday, Justice Geoffrey Kennett suppressed the footage from all X users until Wednesday, when an application for a permanent ban will be heard.
Hours later, Musk posted on his personal X account a cartoon that depicted a fork in a road with one path leading to “free speech” and “truth” and the other to “censorship” and “propaganda.”
Musk cited Albanese telling reporters Monday that other social media platforms had largely complied with the regulator’s orders to take violent content down.
“I’d like to take a moment to thank the PM for informing the public that this platform is the only truthful one,” Musk posted.
Albanese berated Musk in several television interviews Tuesday.
“We’ll do what’s necessary to take on this arrogant billionaire who thinks he’s above the law, but also above common decency,” Albanese told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “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. Social media needs to have social responsibility with it.”
