Elon Musk yesterday lashed out at Australia’s prime minister after a court ordered his social media company X to take down footage of an alleged terrorist attack in Sydney, and said the ruling meant any nation could control “the entire Internet.”
At a hearing overnight, Australia’s Federal Court ordered X to temporarily hide posts showing video of the incident a week earlier, in which a teenager was charged with terrorism for knifing an Assyrian priest and others.
X said it had already blocked the posts from Australian users, but Australia’s e-safety commissioner had said the content should be taken down since it showed explicit violence.
Photo: Reuters
“Does the PM think he should have jurisdiction over all of Earth?” Musk wrote in a post, referring to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
The billionaire, who bought X in 2022 with a declared mission to save free speech, posted a meme on the platform that showed X stood for “free speech and truth,” while other social media platforms represented “censorship and propaganda.”
Musk also wrote that “if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian ‘eSafety Commissar’ is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet?”
The pushback by the world’s third-richest person sets up a new front in the battle between the world’s largest Internet platforms and nations and nonprofits seeking more oversight of the content hosted on them.
Australia’s e-safety commissioner fined X A$610,500 (US$393,895) last year for failing to cooperate with a probe on anti-child abuse practices. X is fighting that penalty in court.
Albanese hit back at Musk, saying the nation would “do what’s necessary to take on this arrogant billionaire who thinks he’s above the law, but also above common decency.”
“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,” Albanese told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Although Musk wrote in another post that X had “blocked the content in question for Australian IP addresses,” the video could be seen on the platform by a Reuters journalist in Australia.
Alice Dawkins, executive director of Internet policy nonprofit Reset.Tech Australia, said Musk’s comments fit “the company’s chaotic and negligent approach to the most basic user safety considerations that, under previous leadership, the platform used to take seriously.”
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
Hundreds of thousands of Guyana citizens living at home and abroad would receive a payout of about US$478 each after the country announced it was distributing its “mind-boggling” oil wealth. The grant of 100,000 Guyanese dollars would be available to any citizen of the South American country aged 18 and older with a valid passport or identification card. Guyanese citizens who normally live abroad would be eligible, but must be in Guyana to collect the payment. The payout was originally planned as a 200,000 Guyanese dollar grant for each household in the country, but was reframed after concerns that some citizens, including
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
RSS