Elon Musk, owner of social media platform X and the world’s third-richest man, is an “arrogant billionaire who thinks he’s above the law,” says Australia’s prime minister, as the two men are locked in a feud over the country’s ability to demand the removal of social media content.
After X refused to comply with an Australian court order to take down violent content for all global users, Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese went on a media warpath, blasting billionaire owner Elon Musk in interview after interview on Tuesday.
In addition to dubbing Musk “arrogant” in an interview with Australia’s ABC News, Albanese also called the billionaire “a bloke who’s chosen ego and showing violence over common sense” to Sky News Australia.
Last week, the country’s social media regulator ordered Musk’s platform to remove content showing a violent attack on an Australian church. X and Musk have refused to comply, arguing that Australia’s regulators don’t have the power to determine what content can be shown in other countries.
On April 15, an Assyrian Orthodox bishop in Sydney was stabbed during a livestreamed sermon. (Police arrested a 16-year-old boy after the attack.) The live feed spurred a crowd of about 2,000 people to gather around the church; some of the crowd later clashed with police.
Following the incident, the eSafety Commission ordered social media platforms to remove content related to the attack.
In a post on Saturday, X said it complied with the demand to remove “certain posts” in Australia, in a statement posted to the social media platform. Yet it also argued that the order was “not within the scope of Australian law,” and that it would file a legal challenge.
In that same post, X claimed that the eSafety Commission demanded the social media platform take down content for all users globally, or face daily fines of 785,000 Australian dollars ($506,000).
On Monday, an Australian court upheld the global ban until Wednesday, at which point the court would consider making the ban permanent. During the hearing, Commission lawyers argued that Australia-based users could still use virtual private networks to see the posts.
After Albanese gave a press conference noting that other social media companies complied with the Commission’s orders, Musk thanked the prime minister “for informing the public that this platform is the only truthful one.”
On Tuesday, Musk argued: “If ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries … then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire internet?”
X and moderation
Outside groups have consistently accused X of failing to contain hate speech since Musk took over the platform in October 2022. Companies have pulled back their spending on the social media platform after reports showed ads displayed next to hateful content.
X and Musk have vigorously denied that incidents of hate speech have risen on the platform. The company even filed a lawsuit last year against the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which had criticized the platform for failing to take action against hate speech. A U.S. court dismissed the suit last month.
Musk has previously tussled with Australia’s eSafety Commission on moderation questions.
Last year, the watchdog fined X 610,500 Australian dollars ($386,000) for refusing to cooperate with a probe on child abuse.
And earlier this year, it ordered X to take down an abusive post targeting a leading health expert that mocked his identity as a trans man.
At the time, X said it blocked the post for users based in Australia to comply with the order, but continued that it would “file a legal challenge to the order to protect its users’ right to free speech.”
