Elon Musk is mad he’s been ordered to remove Sydney church stabbing videos from X. He’d be more furious if he saw our other laws

By Rob Nicholls, University of Sydney

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has ordered social media platform “X” (formerly known as Twitter) to remove graphic videos of the stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in Sydney last week from the site. The incident was captured on the church’s livestreamed mass service.

In response to this order, X’s owner, Elon Musk, has branded the commissioner the “Australian censorship commissar”.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1781394185951563973?t=OTO2Mi2Za6-fyh7EXfD4Iw&s=19

X had agreed to part of the take-down. However, it did not agree with removing the material entirely, telling media publications “X believes that eSafety’s order was not within the scope of Australian law and we complied with the directive pending a legal challenge.”

So what are the laws around this, especially because the church incident was quickly labelled a terrorist act by authorities? What powers do governments have in this situation?

Prompt political fallout

The response from politicians has been swift. Labor minister Tanya Plibersek referred to Musk as an “egotistical billionaire”.

Senior Liberal Simon Birmingham said:

They absolutely should be able to quickly and effectively remove content that’s damaging and devastating to the social harmony and fabric of society, particularly images such as terrorist attacks.

Other Labor ministers described X as “a playground for criminals and cranks” or accused the company of thinking they’re above the law.

Of course such damning remarks directed towards a much-maligned website and its equally controversial owner are to be expected. What politicians can do about it is another matter.

What do federal laws say?

The eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman-Grant, has the power to require the take-down of material under the Online Safety Act. The power she exercised under part nine of that act was to issue a “removal notice”. The removal notice requires a social media platform to take down material that would be refused classification under the Classification Act.

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