Cross posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/13351707

Australia’s prime minister has labelled X’s owner, Elon Musk, an “arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law” as the rift deepens between Australia and the tech platform over the removal of videos of a violent stabbing in a Sydney church.

On Monday evening in an urgent last-minute federal court hearing, the court ordered a two-day injunction against X to hide posts globally containing the footage of the alleged stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel on 15 April. The eSafety commissioner had previously directed X to remove the posts, but X had only blocked them from access in Australia pending a legal challenge.

Anthony Albanese on Tuesday said Musk was “a bloke who’s 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 told Sky News. “He is in social media, but he has a social responsibility in order to have that social licence.”

“What the eSafety commissioner is doing 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,” he said.

  • sin_free_for_00_days
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    7 months ago

    Could have just said “billionaire”. The arrogant and above the law are a given.

  • redfellow
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    7 months ago

    While I dislike Elon as much as anyone, having one country dictate what content is ok for ALL countries is an insane notion on itself.

    Some of us can still remember Australia banning small breasts in porn, but at least they didn’t order every service to remove those globally “just because”.

    • quindraco@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      Heh, you’re already attracting the same downvotes I did when I said the same thing.

      Lemmy, there’s enough room here for Elon Musk to be an absolute tool and for Australia to be an absolute douchebag, both at once.

      • redfellow
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        7 months ago

        This place has enough autistic people who only see black and white. Luckily it’s not a game and the points don’t matter. 😄