Australian Government Fails to Force Elon Musk’s X to Censor Content

The Australian government has abruptly dropped its efforts to force Elon Musk’s X to remove footage from April of an Islamist violently attacking a Christian Bishop.

As we previously highlighted, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his government went to war with Musk, after the X owner refused demands to remove all copies of a video of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel being stabbed during a live streamed mass.

Australia’s so called ‘eSafety Commissioner’ Julie Inman-Grant, an unelected official, ordered X to remove footage of the attack under the Online Safety Act, passed in 2021, which empowers the eSafety department to demand the removal of so-called ‘class 1 material’.

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Other government officials even called for Musk to be thrown in prison over the incident:

Albanese appeared to call for a ban on memes, with his government having also proposed a so-called misinformation bill, released as a draft last year, which would empower the Australian Communications and Media Authority to require online platforms to remove or restrict content considered “false, misleading or deceptive, and where the provision of that content on the service is reasonably likely to cause or contribute to serious harm,” according to the wording of the draft legislation.

Now, however, Australia’s so called ‘eSafety Commissioner’ has declared that the Federal Court case is to be abandoned owing to legal red tape and the expiration of a temporary order to conceal the video.

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She further claimed “Our sole goal and focus in issuing our removal notice was to prevent this extremely violent footage from going viral, potentially inciting further violence and inflicting more harm on the Australian community and I stand by my investigators and the decisions eSafety made.”

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Reportedly, every other social media platform complied with the request to remove the footage. Only X stood its ground.

“Through this process, eSafety has also welcomed the opportunity to test its novel regulatory powers — set out under Australia’s Online Safety Act — to protect Australians from online harm,” The Commissioner added.

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