Elon Musk on Tuesday criticized Australia’s prime minister after a court ordered his social media company He argued that the country could end up controlling “the entire internet.”
Musk came under fire from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and other government officials last week for failing to delete a video showing a teenage boy stabbing two people, including a priest.
X geo-blocked footage from Australian users, but did not remove the clips from its servers.
Australia’s Electronic Safety Commissioner said the content showed explicit violence and should be removed.
“Do you think the prime minister should have jurisdiction over the entire planet?” Musk wrote about X.
The billionaire, who acquired X in 2022 with a stated mission of defending free speech, said that while other social media platforms represent “censorship and propaganda,” He posted a meme on his platform showing that he represents “the truth.”
Albanese fired back at Musk, saying the country would “do whatever it takes to stand up to this arrogant billionaire who thinks he’s above the law, but also above decency.” Stated.
Mr Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: “The idea that someone would sue for the right to put violent content on their platform shows how out of line Mr Musk is.” .
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for e-Safety, the Australian internet regulator set up in response to the 2019 Christchurch shootings, said the takedown notice only covered the footage of the attack, adding: It is not intended for public discussion or other postings. Even those that may link to extreme violent content. ”
“Although it may be difficult to completely eradicate harmful content from the internet, eSafety is committed to ensuring that platforms are able to implement practical and reasonable measures to minimize the harm that they may cause to Australians and Australian communities. We are asking you to do all that,” the spokesperson added in a statement.
In another post, Musk wrote that X had “blocked the content in question for an Australian IP address,” a video of which could be seen on the platform by a Reuters reporter in Australia.
A far-right senator also reposted the video on his X account.
Facebook and Instagram owner Mehta said on Tuesday that it had used “internal tools” to detect and block copies of videos from the church attack and an unrelated stabbing at a Sydney shopping mall two days earlier. did.
Meta said it would remove posts that included “glorifying or glorifying” the incident.
This is the second time in the past three weeks that Musk’s site has clashed with the government.
Earlier this month, a Brazilian Supreme Court judge ordered X to block certain accounts, but Musk’s site initially did not comply.
Judge Alexandre de Moraes gave X until Friday to explain why he allegedly did not fully comply with a previous ruling ordering the account to be blocked.
with post wire
