‘What is to stop any country from controlling the entire internet?’ Musk takes on Australian free speech laws
Elon Musk will send his lawyers into battle a takedown notice for social media platform X, arguing the Australian eSafety Commissioner has overstepped in making the legal demand.
The tech giant is kicking against a Federal Court order to remove videos of the Wakeley church stabbing from social media platform X, after it refused to comply with a formal takedown notice by the eSafety commissioner.
Musk voiced his concerns last night on X, saying: “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?”
Under the Online Safety Act, the maximum civil penalty for failing to comply with a take-down notice is $782,500 per day, however Musk claims X has “already censored the content in question for Australia, pending legal appeal, and it is stored only on servers in the USA.”
After taking aim at Musk yesterday morning during his live cross on Today (of which Musk is most likely not a viewer), Albanese took to Sky News yesterday evening to continue his tirade, saying Musk has “chosen ego, and showing violence, over common sense”.
“Australians will shake their head when they think that this billionaire is prepared to go to court fighting for the right to sow division and to show violent videos,” he said.
“He is in social media, but he has a social responsibility in order to have that social licence.”
Albanese told the ABC the eSafety commissioner is “doing her job to protect the interests of Australians, and 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”, calling him “an arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law”.
Musk’s argument hinges on freedom of speech, despite the fact the Australian Constitution “does not explicitly protect freedom of expression”. Albanese isn’t buying this motive, however.
“This isn’t about freedom of speech,” Albanese said. “This is an egotist. He is someone who’s totally out of touch with the values that Australian families have, and this is causing great distress.”
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil says this entire incident shows that international media companies should be subject to stricter controls.
“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,” O’Neil told Channel 7 this morning.
“Instead, we’re seeing megalomaniacs like Elon Musk going to court to fight for the right to show alleged terrorist content on his platform.
“This tells us everything we need to know.
“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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Nathan Jolly is the Deputy Editor of Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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Those with even a shred of cognitive function can see that this takedown of X is nothing but a personal vendetta. Hello ex-twitter
employee Julie Inman Grant (who’s not even an Australian!)
The fact that the same material is readily available on Facebook and Instagram, without a whisper of condemnation, exposes the truth: independent content creators are steamrolling the mainstream media and thriving on X and TikTok. This isn’t about sanitising “harmful content”; it’s all about seizing back control of the narrative from the decrepit, gasping dying mainstream media.
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Whilst I agree in proncipal about what Musk is saying, he has a tendency to control free speech on his own platform and then when called out on it, you can only hear crickets. Musk posts inflammatory content and conspiracy theories that are not based in truth so he is giving himself carte blanche to post rubbish and then hiding behind the first amendment.
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