Musk Against the Australian Censors By Peter West
While there may be a case to examine children being inundated by a "a cauldron of extremist poison" on the internet, from sites such as the communist Chinese TikTok, the present conflict between Elon Musk and the Albanese government over the viewing of the Sydney church stabbing, an act of terrorism, does raise free speech issues, and the issue of whether the Australian government can censor the internet of other countries. The government is demanding a global takedown, not just of the video in Australia. Here is Albo's comments:
"He [Mr Musk] is someone who is totally out of touch with the values that Australian families have."
"He's putting his ego and his dollars towards taking a court case for the right to put more violent content on that will cause distress to people who are on his platform.
"Other social media operators have accepted the decision of the eSafety Commissioner."
Well, what happened to the freedom of will, not to watch this, if one is a sensitive snowflake; how about a bit of individual responsibility? And what other social media companies do is irrelevant since they are hardly defenders of free speech. The Sydney stabbing video is of importance to the public policy debate about the Labor government's open door mass immigration program, as Pauline Hanson said, and contrary to the prime minister, this censorship is what is contrary to Australian values, which is something one would have thought he would have learnt over his humiliating Voice referendum defeat.
Good luck to Musk. Perhaps he needs to get a ruling from the US Supreme Court to nullify the Australian law, if that is how the system is going to work now.
"Australia's top cop has lashed social media companies for not doing enough to protect children being targeted by 'a cauldron of extremist poison'.
Australia's Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw has lashed social media giants like X and Meta - which runs Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp - for being 'indifferent' to law enforcement efforts to curb unrestrained 'misinformation', sexual exploitation and criminal activity.
In an address to the National Press Club on Wednesday, Mr Kershaw will warn that social media companies are allowing the spread of what authorities regard as misinformation.
'Social media companies are refusing to snuff out the social combustion on their platforms,' the top cop said.
'Instead of putting out the embers that start on their platforms, their indifference and defiance is pouring accelerant on the flames.'
It comes after graphic footage of two stabbings incidents in Sydney spread like wildfire on platforms like X, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
On April 13, video of Joel Cauchi running through Westfield Bondi Junction as he fatally stabbed six people did the rounds on social media.
Just days later, a Christian bishop was stabbed by an alleged terrorist during a service at a western Sydney church that was being live-streamed.
Mr Kershaw will say footage of these attacks, as well as misinformation that circulated on social media, inflicts harm on Australians.
The top cop also warned young people were at risk of being extorted or sexually exploited on the open or dark web by 'digital-world deceivers'.
'We need to constantly reinforce that people are not always who they claim to be online; and that also applies to images and information,' he will say.
'Criminals, pretending to be someone else, use social media to trick youth into sending intimate images of themselves, and then blackmail them for money.
'Fearing their images will be sent to loved ones, young people have taken their lives.'
His comments comes as X, owned by American billionaire Elon Musk, was ordered by the Australian government via the Federal Court to remove footage of the church attack from its platform.
The company said it had complied with the order in Australia while also taking out a two-day injunction - but argued a global takedown order was over-reach.
X and eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman-Grant will return to court on Wednesday after the two-day injunction.
A failure to comply with a court's ruling to remove posts could see X fined almost $800,000 a day and executives be held in contempt of court.
A failure to pay those fines, or a contempt charge, could force the government into blocking access to X in Australia.
Nationals senator Matt Canavan said such a draconian step would do more harm than good and foster the belief that authorities had something to hide.
'You're not going to stop these things from circulating on the internet because the video remains freely available despite what the eSafety commissioner says, on Facebook, on Meta, and of course on Twitter,' Sen. Canavan said on Nine's Today show.
'More people have seen it because of the moral panic over it over the last week. You're not going to stop this, if you try to you'll just fuel the conspiracy theories and so we need more free speech to battle against this, not less.'
On Tuesday, Musk shared a post stating Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had only succeeded in advertising X's virtues when he complained that it was the only social media company not to have bowed to the demands of the eSafety commissioner.
'I'd like to take a moment to thank the PM for informing the public that this platform is the only truthful one,' Mr Musk said.
'Our concern is 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.
'We have already censored the content in question for Australia, pending legal appeal, and it is stored only on servers in the USA. Should the eSafety Commissar (an unelected official) in Australia have authority over all countries on Earth?'
Mr Albanese hit back, branding Mr Musk as 'arrogant' for defying the demands of eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant - a former Twitter employee - which he said were only enforcing 'common decency'.
'He [Mr Musk] is someone who is totally out of touch with the values that Australian families have,' Mr Albanese said.
'He's putting his ego and his dollars towards taking a court case for the right to put more violent content on that will cause distress to people who are on his platform.
'Other social media operators have accepted the decision of the eSafety Commissioner.'
Asked whether the commissioner could be granted stronger powers or if access to X should be cut, he said the government would look at what measures could be taken.
'No one wants censorship here - what we want, though, is the application of a bit of common sense so you don't show and propagate violence online,' Mr Albanese said."
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