Elon Musk's followers are taking his side after he got into a censorship stoush with the Australian Government. Photo / AP
The Australian Government has found itself in a battle with billionaire Elon Musk and his legions of supporters.
Australia’s eSafety commissioner last week ordered Musk’s social media platform X - formally Twitter - to remove images of the alleged stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in Sydney, which was captured on a livestream earlier this month.
X only blocked the images to Australian users, prompting a further legal challenge that was upheld temporarily by an Australian federal court.
The moves have provoked anger from Musk, who has accused Australia of trying to govern the world’s internet, and his millions of followers are taking his side.
X has argued the order is “not within the scope of Australian law” and Musk posed the question online: “Should the eSafety Commissar (an unelected official) in Australia have authority over all countries on Earth?”
It prompted Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to call Musk an “arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law.”
Parallels with this case can be drawn with New Zealand’s efforts to remove videos of the Christchurch terror attack from social media. Facebook removed 1.5 million copies of the video in the first 24 hours after the terror attack.
Former Chief Censor David Shanks decided to censor that video and he told The Front Page Facebook and Google were fighting against their algorithms in taking the video down.
“And it was in breach of their own terms of use, policies, and safety codes anyway. They were already working to remove this material. When this was classified as unlawful in this country - it didn’t have a major change in their focus. But, I did have officials from the likes of Facebook say it was helpful in their overall effort to remove the material.
“When we saw the recent horrendous stabbing attacks in Australia... I knew immediately what it was going to mean. There was going to be footage from bystanders, livestream cameras, and potentially security cameras.
“And Twitter [X] appears is being recognised as a platform where it’ll allow full entire clips showing quite grievous, detailed violence. That’s always going to create issues and rub against jurisdictions that have rules.
“He’s [Musk] playing an extensive game here to ensure that he has a proposition that has something of a unique selling point in terms of being very permissive, very pro-freedom of speech, and having very few limitations other than what is imposed on the platform by law.
“That hasn’t worked in the past because these platforms become so toxic, so full of intensely violent or graphic shocking material that they become unusable,” he said.
Shanks says more conversations need to be had about where to draw the line.
“One of the things I used to say when I was a Chief Censor is that the world can be a very brutal and violent place. There are many bad things that happen in the world. And it can’t be the job of a censor or regulator to try and insulate people from that reality.
“There is a balance that absolutely needs to be struck here about what is reasonable and practicable and what is the right balance between freedom of speech and ensuring that people aren’t harmed unnecessarily, unwillingly, or re-victimised.”
Listen to the full episode to hear more about the fine line between freedom of speech and harmful content online.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.
You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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