Australian political leaders are locked in a war of words with American billionaire Elon Musk after eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant ordered the platform takedown footage of a Sydney terror incident that occurred on April 15.
X said it had geo-blocked the content in Australia, but refuses to comply with a global takedown order, saying such a move would violate freedom of speech and was beyond the jurisdiction of local authorities. The social media platform says it has launched legal action against the order.
However, on April 22, the eSafety commissioner won a two-day injunction in the Federal Court ordering X to remove the posts for all users globally. The Big Tech company has two days to challenge the order.
Read the latest developments.
The Assyrian Christian bishop who was attacked during a live-streamed sermon has said he does not want footage of the incident removed from the internet.
The video of the multiple stabbing attack, is at the heart of an ongoing war of words and a legal battle between Australian authorities and X owner Elon Musk.
On April 22, lawyers for the eSafety Commission applied to the Federal Court for an injunction to compel the social media platform to block all videos of the incident across IPs globally—a request, X says, extends far beyond the jurisdiction of local authorities.
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[epoch_component type=“live_update” section_title=“Jacqui Lambie Asks Musk To ‘Put His Big Boy Pants On’” update_time=“2024-04-24T03:11” inline_authors=“144475” update_source="“ pinned=”false"]
Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie has again taken aim at Elon Musk, saying he should do the right thing and comply with the eSafety commissioner’s takedown request.
It comes after she emphatically quit X, with a message that Mr. Musk should be “jailed.” Mr. Musk hit back, calling the senator “enemy of the people of Australia.”
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has ordered X Corp to take down 65 tweets containing video of the Sydney church stabbing attack on April 15.
“Elon Musk should put his big boy pants on and do the right thing—but he won’t because he has no social conscience,” Ms. Lambie wrote on Instagram on April 24.
“The AFP (Australian Federal Police) told the Federal court that ’there is a real risk' the video could be used to encourage people in Australia to join a terrorist organisation or undertake a terrorist act.”
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[epoch_component type=“live_update” section_title=“Content By Government, Mainstream Media ‘Excluded’ From Misinformation Bill” update_time=“2024-04-24T01:48” inline_authors=“144475” update_source="“ pinned=”false"]
Everyday Australians will be the main target for the crackdown on misinformation while the government and mainstream will be exempted.
According to the exposure draft of the Misinformation Bill, the content excluded for misinformation purposes includes content “authorised by the Commonwealth, a state, territory or local government” and “professional news content.”
Content produced by an educational institution “accredited by a foreign government or a body recognised by a foreign government” will also be excluded from the list of misinformation.
Liberal MP Russell Broadbent posted a screenshot of the exposure draft on his X account on April 24.
“We know why all sides of government and the MSM are on board with the Mis and Disinformation (sic) Bill ... Because they’re excluded!” he said.
“And so are educational institutions accredited by a foreign government!!”
“What could possibly go wrong?”
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[epoch_component type=“live_update” section_title=“Misinformation Bill ‘Cuts To The Very Essence Of Our Freedoms’: Victorian MP” update_time=“2024-04-24T01:20” inline_authors=“144475” update_source="“ pinned=”false"]
The government’s misinformation bill would result in “heinous, state-sanctioned surveillance and censorship,” said a Victorian MP.
Russell Broadbent, the member for Monash, said he had “great concern” about the government’s proposed Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) bill 2023.
The government is considering imposing harsher penalties on social media companies after footage of a Sydney church stabbing and the Bondi attack emerged on social media.
On April 23, Mr. Broadbent shared a letter he wrote to Opposition Leader Peter Dutton regarding the matter on X.
“In my decades of service to the Australian Parliament I have never known such egregious legislation to be contemplated—let alone drafted,” the letter, dated June 2023, read.
Mr. Broadbent warned the legislation will “essentially enable ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority) to become ‘the Ministry of Truth.’”
“In short, it will result in heinous, state-sanctioned surveillance and censorship.”
“This legislation is an affront to our nation’s way of life. It is not only an infringement of our Australian democracy, but it cuts to the very essence of our freedoms and liberty.”
He added that the bill “represents the anthesis of Liberal Party values as outlined in our Statement of Belief: ‘The freedom of thought, worship, speech and association.’”
“I will be opposing this legislation with all my might, and I trust the Liberal Party will do the same. I seek your urgent advice.”
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[epoch_component type=“live_update” section_title=“No Absolute Right to Privacy: Security Chiefs Call on Big Tech to Put the Brakes on Encryption” update_time=“2024-04-23T22:03” inline_authors="“ update_source=”“ pinned=”false"]
Australia’s top domestic spy chief and police commissioner will call on Big Tech to slow down the roll-out of more advanced encryption, encouraging tech firms to help counter online extremism.
In an upcoming address at the National Press Club in Canberra, Mike Burgess, the director-general of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO, and the equivalent of the FBI) will warn that comprehensive end-to-end encryption on messaging apps hampers criminal investigations.
Meanwhile, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw will accuse social media platforms of “refusing to snuff out the social combustion.”
“Instead of putting out the embers on their platforms, their indifference and defiance is pouring accelerant on the flames,” he will say.
“If we consider the disinformation and misinformation from two shocking incidents in Sydney this month, and how that social combustion was propagated throughout the world, we see the consequences of that indifference and defiance.”
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[epoch_component type=“live_update” section_title=“Parliament Must Step Up to Regulate Social Media: Home Affairs Minister” update_time=“2024-04-23T20:14” inline_authors=“143735” update_source="“ pinned=”false"]
Australian Home Affairs Minister Claire O'Neil has called Elon Musk a “megalomaniac” for his refusal to globally take down content showing a terrorist stabbing of a bishop.
Speaking to Seven’s Sunrise, she said social media was causing mental health issues and spreading “terrible attitudes.”
“They are creating civil division, social unrest, just about every problem that we have as a country is either being exacerbated or caused by social media and we’re not seeing a skerrick of responsibility by these companies,” she said.
“Instead, we’re seeing megalomaniacs like Elon Musk going to court to fight for the right to show alleged terrorist content on his platform.
“There is no way that these social media platforms are going to do the right thing voluntarily and we need to step up and do better as a parliament to make sure that we regulate them.”
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[epoch_component type=“live_update” section_title=“Top News App in Australia” update_time=“2024-04-23T19:45” inline_authors="“ update_source=”“ pinned=”false"]
X became the top grossing news app in Australia overnight, rising two places.
In response, Elon Musk said Australian people want the truth.
“X is the only one standing up for their rights.”
The app has just fallen to second place.
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[epoch_social_embed]The Australian people want the truth.
𝕏 is the only one standing up for their rights. https://t.co/6ZwzNejKLq[/epoch_social_embed]
[epoch_component type=“live_update” section_title=“Enemy of the People: Musk” update_time=“2024-04-23T19:25” inline_authors=“131714” update_source="“ pinned=”false"]
Tech billionaire Elon Musk has continued his criticism of Australian authorities and Senator Jacqui Lambie, who on April 23, called for Mr. Musk to be “jailed.”
“This woman has utter contempt for the Australian people,” Mr. Musk wrote in response to a clip of the senator being interviewed.Under another post, Mr. Musk wrote that the senator was the “enemy of the people of Australia.”[/epoch_component]
[epoch_component type=“live_update” section_title=“Former Counter Terrorism Agent Warns About Wider Implications of Global Content Bans” update_time=“2024-04-23T02:21” inline_authors=“144475” update_source="“ pinned=”false"]
A former federal agent has expressed concerns about the implications of a global ban on content.
“If the Australian Government gets to decide what content is allowed on the internet, why not the Chinese Government? The Saudi Government? The Russian Government?” Carrick Ryan, a former counter terrorism agent said in a post on X on April 23.In another post, he asked, “Should Israel be allowed to censor scenes of dead babies from Twitter?”Mr. Ryan criticised Elon Musk as “narcissistic,” yet argued that he didn’t want “any government deciding what content I will find offensive and must be shielded from.”“This website is a cesspit and getting worse. But no one is being forced to be here!”
“This is state paternalism.”
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[epoch_component type=“live_update” section_title=“Senator Jacqui Lambie Quits X, Calls For Musk To Be ‘Jailed’” update_time=“2024-04-23T01:11” inline_authors=“144475” update_source="“ pinned=”false"]
Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie has deleted her X account and called for the imprisonment of Elon Musk after the billionaire refused to comply with the Australian government’s order to remove graphic content from the social media platform.“Hate speech and extremist or violent video is not free speech,” she said in a post on Facebook on April 23.
“X (formerly Twitter) has been going down the sewer for a while now so today I deleted my X account.”
“I have also asked all my federal colleagues to do the same.”
Speaking to Sky News, Ms. Lambie argued, “when you want to lead by example, it has to happen from here, so start switching off X.”The senator didn’t hold back on her criticism while talking to ABC RN on the same day.
She said that the X owner “has no social conscience or conscience whatsoever.”
“Whatever Elon Musk is on, to continue to do that is absolutely disgusting behaviour. Quite frankly the bloke should be jailed,” Ms. Lambie said.
“The sooner that we can bring rules in or do something about this sort of game playing with our social media, the better off we’re going to be.”
Ms. Lambie called Mr. Musk “an absolute friggin disgrace.”
“The power that man has because of that platform that he’s on, it’s gotta stop, it’s absolutely got to stop.”
“Leaving that out for our kids to see, for people that were family and friends out there and just letting that run on there, once again, that bloke has no conscience.”
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[caption id=“attachment_5635206” align=“alignnone” width=“600”]Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie’s X profile on April 23. (Screenshot/The Epoch Times)[/caption]
[epoch_component type=“live_update” section_title=“‘No One Has A Monopoly On Truth’: Free Speech Union” update_time=“2024-04-23T00:33” inline_authors=“144475” update_source="“ pinned=”false"]
The Free Speech Union of Australia has opposed the government’s push to impose harsher sanctions on what it deemed as misinformation online, saying “no one has a monopoly on truth.”
The Australian authorities are looking to tighten its misinformation law after videos of a Sydney church stabbing and the Bondi Junction attack emerged on X in early April.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has maintained the battle with X was not “about freedom of expression” but rather “the dangerous implications that can occur” when misinformation is “weaponised” to cause division.
But the Free Speech Union argued that “so often claims of misinformation are used to demonise, stigmatise, and suppress views that people merely disagree with.”
“There he goes again—the PM is still arguing for censorship, this time by invoking the fight against ‘misinformation,’” the union said in a post on X on April 22.
“No one has a monopoly on truth—not the government, not the Prime Minister. Nobody.”
“The truth emerges from free and open debate; from a contest of ideas. Censorship prevents that contest of ideas from happening, which actually makes it harder to get at the truth.”
The union argued that censorship is about “protecting power from truth, not about protecting truth from falsehood.”
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[epoch_social_embed]There he goes again - The PM is still arguing for censorship, this time by invoking the fight against ‘misinformation’. The problem here is that so often claims of misinformation are used to demonise, stigmatise, and suppress views that people merely disagree with.
No one has a… pic.twitter.com/yByL6onIdw[/epoch_social_embed]Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has backed harsher regulations on online misinformation despite previously decrying the law as “Orwellian.”[epoch_component type=“live_update” section_title=“Opposition Leader Peter Dutton Supports Crackdown On ‘Misinformation’” update_time=“2024-04-23T01:58” inline_authors=“144475” update_source="“ pinned=”false"]Mr. Dutton said the government needed to strike “the right balance” so that it doesn’t “impinge on your ability to express a view in a democracy.”
“What [social media companies] are worried about is the flow-on to other markets if Australia’s laws are upheld, and that’s all the more reasons, I think, for us to take a stance,” he told the ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday.
“It’s important for us, but for other democracies as well.
“We know that the companies ... see themselves [as] above the law and the Australian law should apply equally in the real world as it does online.”
The opposition leader added that he was “happy to look at anything the government puts forward.”
The rhetoric was a departure from the Coalition’s staunch opposition to the Misinformation Bill in 2023.
Shadow Communication Minister David Coleman said in September 2023 that the bill “needs to be stopped because no government should tell us what we can and cannot say.” He also warned that it would capture “thousands of statements made by Australians every day.”
“Labor’s Bill would see huge fines issued to tech companies if the government thinks they are not doing enough to reduce misinformation online. To avoid those fines, these companies will remove the free speech of Australians,” he said.“And there’s going to be a lot of deleting going on because the Bill will capture thousands of statements made by Australians every day.
He added that “disagreeing about things, even arguing about them, is how we move forward in a democracy.”
“If we all agreed on everything, then nothing would ever change. And we would be a much weaker country.”
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[epoch_component type=“live_update” section_title=“'Freedoms Do Have Limits’: Liberal Senator” update_time=“2024-04-23T01:42” inline_authors=“144475” update_source="“ pinned=”false"]
Simon Birmingham has argued that Australian authorities support free speech, but only to a certain extent.
The South Australian Liberal Senator has joined the chorus of calls for X to remove videos of the Sydney church stabbing, saying Elon Musk was “dead wrong” in his argument that the global content removal order was an attack on free speech.
“We all support legitimate free speech. But ultimately, these freedoms do have limits when it comes to content and information that can be harmful,” Mr. Birmingham told Sky News on April 23.He argued that the videos of the stabbing of Assyrian Christian Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel are not only “disturbing in and of themselves” but they are “frequently used by people to stir up trouble in communities through coupling of disinformation and misinformation.”
“Elon Musk’s arguments run completely counter to the facts and the evidence as to how this type of information is used in a dangerous way that drives disharmony and discord within our community.”
The senator said the government’s criticism of X’s refusal to globally block the content sent “a pretty clear message for social media companies, and that is that there’s one law in Australia everybody should comply with.”
He claimed the law has been “built on the basis of Australian values and Australian standards, which are that we don’t want our children or other Australians exposed to dangerous, violent online content.”
“If you think about what social media companies are able to ram down your throat through their algorithms and targeted content, they definitely have the capabilities and power to remove this stuff and to do so much faster and more comprehensively than they choose to do so at present.”
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[epoch_component type=“live_update” section_title=“Businessman Sam Kennard Warns Against Labor’s ‘Ministry Of Truth’” update_time=“2024-04-22T23:33” inline_authors=“144475” update_source="“ pinned=”false"]
The CEO of one of Australia’s largest self-storage companies, Kennards Self Storage, has weighed in on the debate between Australian authorities and X.
He warned the government’s bid to fight “misinformation” could become a tool to “control citizens.”
In a post on X on April 22, businessman Sam Kennard argued, “Albo’s Ministry of Truth will be used to control citizens and companies and entrench power in the government.”
He criticised the government’s proposed Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023.
The bill would allow the government to issue hefty fines to tech companies if they were found not doing enough to reduce misinformation online—exemptions are available to politicians and academics.
“Remember, the proposed law includes an exemption for government from penalties for expressing misinformation and disinformation,” Mr. Kennard said.
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[/epoch_social_embed][epoch_component type=“live_update” section_title=“Sydney Church Stabbing Footage Used As An Excuse To Regulate Online Content: Senator” update_time=“2024-04-22T22:39” inline_authors=“144475” update_source="“ pinned=”false"]
- Image of Sam Kennard of Kennards Storage (Courtesy of Sam Kennard)
Nationals Senator Matt Canavan has accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of using the “terrible” church stabbing incident in Western Sydney to increase government control over online content.
Mr. Canavan also criticised Mr. Albanese for being selective in his calling for the removal of the stabbing footage, saying “there’s much more graphic videos available on social media and mainstream media websites which are not taken down.”
Speaking to Sky News Australia on Tuesday, April 23, the Nationals Senator asked, “Who gets to decide what division is good and what division is bad?”
He noted that a video of Indigenous man Kumanjayi Walker being murdered led to “substantial division” yet it did not warrant the same response from the government.
“The video of Mr. Walker being killed in Yuendumu a few years ago did lead to substantial division, it led to riots and protests in Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory, yet there was no attempt to take that video down,” he said.
“What the prime minister is trying to do here is to use a violent stabbing, a terrible incident in western Sydney, to say somehow he now needs a government power to tell you what you can say.
“Are we going to enter a world where Australian individuals effectively need a license to speak their mind?”
Mr. Canavan argued that politicians shouldn’t have the power to police public’s speech when they were “the biggest peddlers of misinformation in this country.”
He criticised the Albanese government for failing to deliver their election promises to reduce power bills by $275 (US$178) a year by 2025 and to establish the royal commission into COVID-19.
“Why do the politicians get off scot-free for telling lies constantly yet apparently it’s only individual Australians who post things on social media that get policed?” he asked.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Mr. Canavan said the prime minister should focus on reducing petrol prices instead.
“Petrol prices are over $2.30 a litre and our PM is worried about videos on social media,” he said.
“This is why people have had a gutful of our ‘leaders.’”
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[epoch_component type=“live_update” section_title=“Australian PM Accuses Musk of Lacking ‘Decency’ for Refusing Global Content Ban” update_time=“2024-04-22T21:55” inline_authors=“144475” update_source="“ pinned=”false"]
U.S. billionaire Elon Musk has responded to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese after he criticised X (formally Twitter) for refusing to comply with an order from the country’s online regulator to remove content.
The battle between the X owner and the Australian government has continued after the Federal Court of Australia issued a two-day injunction forcing the Big Tech company to block all users around the world from viewing footage of an alleged terror attack in a Sydney church.
On April 23, Mr. Musk posted a cartoon showing a person standing at a three-way junction on his account.
One path leads to “free speech” and “truth” with the logo of X, while the other path leads to “censorship” and “propaganda” with the logo of other social media platforms, including YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Thread, and Reddit.
“Don’t take my words for it, just ask the Australian PM!” the billionaire said.
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