Australia’s prime minister has labelled X’s owner, Elon Musk, an “arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law” as the rift deepens between Australia and the tech platform over the removal of videos of a violent stabbing in a Sydney church.
On Monday evening in an urgent last-minute federal court hearing, the court ordered a two-day injunction against X to hide posts globally containing the footage of the alleged stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel on 15 April. The eSafety commissioner had previously directed X to remove the posts, but X had only blocked them from access in Australia pending a legal challenge.
Anthony Albanese on Tuesday said Musk was “a bloke who’s chosen ego and showing violence over common sense”.
“Australians will shake their head when they think that this billionaire is prepared to go to court fighting for the right to sow division and to show violent videos,” he told Sky News. “He is in social media, but he has a social responsibility in order to have that social licence.”
“What the eSafety commissioner is doing is doing her job to protect the interests of Australians. And 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.
He’s right. American might suck Elon’s dick, but no good reason for us to do it.
I find all this a bit weak when none of these politicians are willing to even consider leaving X
@quicken @tardigrada Really great point.
If Albo really wanted to send a message to Musk, here’s how he could do it:
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Ask all federal Labor MPs to stop posting on X, and start posting on Mastodon.
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Order all federal government departments and agencies to stop posting on X, and start posting on Mastodon.
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Bribe the states to do the same.
"Hi Queensland, guess what? We just found a billion dollars under the couch for a shiny new Olympic stadium. Hi Tasmania, likewise for your new AFL stadium. And look Victoria, here’s a few billion for the airport rail link — we’ll cover the cost difference to put the airport station underground.
“But only if you direct all your MPs, departments, and agencies to switch to Mastodon.”
@ajsadauskas @quicken @tardigrada @mrkvnz Australia should host a Government server and provide a default account for each citizen. Make it an official point of information for the nation.
Sounds a bit too much like the Australia Card.
Also, it would also be government-controlled media.
It might be better to legislate more power and enforcement capabilities to regulate social media companies. Many of them are close to monopolies in their niches and their network effects make competition almost impossible.
I do believe there are areas where it is more ethical and efficient for government to operate services (eg policing, public hospitals, emergency services, schools) but I don’t believe social media is one of them.
Honestly, better to just have an official government server with official government accounts.
They can then federate as needed - official correspondence would be recognizable as it comes from their domain.
Meanwhile people would be able to remain on the servers they’ve chosen and follow whatever is of interest.
@danbeeston @ajsadauskas @quicken @tardigrada
They should, at least have their own federated systems at all levels of government.
My initial boost onto these services was during the bigger floods. (2011) The bird site was invaluable source of information, and I wonder how that’s going to be handle for the next one.
I believe Musk would censor anything that upset an authoritarian regime if it aligned with his business/political interests. I don’t believe his arguments are in good faith.
Attempting to enforce the laws of our country against foreign companies that operate here is fair game. We have some leverage. We can have a debate domestically about if we think this should be enforced or not.
Personally I don’t see a problem with protecting victims of crime, their families and community whether it be child abuse material or graphic video of violent crime. I struggle to see a public interest or freedom of political speech angle that would justify a reasonable individual or company ignoring a sensible request to cease distribution.
Not all censorship is equal nor all enforcement mechanisms. We need more freedom here to criticize public figures as our defo laws are bonkers. Also the government should not attempt to apply wrong-headed technical impediments that would have unintended consequences because they don’t have sufficient expertise or the foresight to understand such actions.
@shirro @tardigrada
Not just *would*, but *has*.
Here’s the “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk, in his own words, in 2023:
“The rules in India for what can appear on social media are quite strict, and we can’t go beyond the laws of a country … If we have a choice of either our people go to prison or we comply with the laws, we will comply with the laws.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/29/tech/elon-musk-twitter-government-takedown/index.html
Elon Musk is an atrocious person, but the government of any country shouldn’t have the ability to remove content from the internet.
forgive me if im wrong, but isnt it removed from twitter if viewed from aussie?
@Ilandar @quoll You mean like the US government’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act
any country should have the right to implement them.
in the absence of any treaty or international law it seems pretty absurd that a random bureaucrat in a 3rd rate power should be able to dictate such a thing.
but guess if twitter has an office in aussie, go nuts. musky boy can decide if he want to do business here or fuck off. fingers crossed for the latter to be honest.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“Australians will shake their head when they think that this billionaire is prepared to go to court fighting for the right to sow division and to show violent videos,” he told Sky News.
He also reposted a tweet from a user claiming that Albanese was “advertising” for Elon by mentioning that other platforms had complied with requests to remove the content while X had not.
The federal court has issued the injunction until 5pm on Wednesday 25 April, pending X’s local legal counsel receiving instructions on X’s response to the case.
On Monday night, a spokesperson for the eSafety commissioner said Meta, Google, Microsoft, Snap and TikTok had worked to remove similar content in the past weeks, and 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”.
The eSafety Commission has been contacted for comment, but in a statement to Guardian Australia, the communications minister, Michelle Rowland, slammed Babet’s response.
Independent senator for Tasmania Jacqui Lambie deleted her X account on Tuesday, telling Sky News that politicians must lead by example.
The original article contains 1,005 words, the summary contains 187 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
