Australia’s eSafety Commissioner is taking aim at Elon Musk’s social platform X, and the federal government says it “won’t be bullied” by Musk’s controversial social platform which has refused to remove posts relating to the Wakeley church stabbing, according to the New Daily.
Over the weekend X said that they were committed to fight what it called an “unlawful and dangerous” directive that would impact free speech around the world with X’s Global Government Affairs team claiming that the posts did not violate X’s rules on violent speech.
Furthermore, X says that it had been threatened with a daily fine of a whopping $785,000 if it did not comply with the order to remove the posts globally.
“X believes that eSafety’s order was not within the scope of Australian law and we complied with the directive pending a legal challenge,” X shared on their social media platform on Saturday. “While X respects the right of a country to enforce its laws within its jurisdiction, the eSafety Commissioner does not have the authority to dictate what content X’s users can see globally.
“We will robustly challenge this unlawful and dangerous approach in court.”
Federal Health Minister Mark Butler warned that the government would take X to task should it pursue the matter in court.
“Australia is not going to be bullied by Elon Musk, or any other tech billionaire, in our commitment to making sure that social media is a safe space,” Butler said to a number of reporters and media in Adelaide. “So if he wants to fight that fine in court, well, we’re up for that fight.”
NSW Premier Chris Minns said X had shown “disregard for the information that they pump into our communities”.
“Then when things go wrong, throwing their hands up in the air to say that they’re not prepared to do anything about it,” Minns said to the media. “If anyone acts in that way, they are doing it in complete defiance of the religious leadership of NSW and it is against the law.”