Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has criticized Elon Musk and his social media platform X, for failing to remove online violent content. Speaking today during a television interview, the PM criticized the tech billionaire’s decision to not comply with the verdict of Australia’s eSafety Commissioner.
The Prime Minister’s Statements and the Violent Videos:
“Well, this guy is saying more about himself than anything else. He’s putting his ego and…billionaire’s dollars towards taking a court case for the right to put more violent content on that will sow social division and cause distress to people.”
The eSafety Commissioner recently ordered both Meta and X to remove material related to the Wakely church attack from their platforms, to which only Meta conformed in full. Labelled as an act of terrorism by New South Wales police, the attack on the 15th April saw an unnamed 16 year-old male stab three people in the Christ The Good Shepherd Church, including founder Bishop Mari Emmanuel. The suburb of Wakely, in Sydney’s southwest, is home to a large population of Assyrian Christians, and the attack was captured on livestream during the service. The video since went viral and caused outrage online.
“The other social media operators accepted the decision of the eSafety Commissioner…kids have access to this sort of material. Surely social media needs to have some element of social responsibility,” said the PM, regarding footage circulating of the attack.
“Most Australians, of course, overwhelmingly would never think about posting the sort of material that would cause damage. And to what end? This is an egotist. He is someone who’s totally out of touch with the values that Australian families have,” Albanese went on to add.
eSafety Commissioner and Online Crackdowns:
The PM insisted that the move was not about censorship, but the application of common sense.
“We don’t want, no one wants censorship here. What we want…is the application of a bit of common sense. So, you don’t show and propagate violence online and surely that’s not too much to ask.”
First raised in 2015, the eSafety commissioner is a government agency dedicated to “Safeguard all Australians from online harms”. Originally launched to protect children online, its mandate has shifted to all Australian citizens online safety. On Monday, the current Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, won a Federal court injunction against social media platforms to remove footage from the Wakely church stabbings.
The Albanese government recently quadrupled funding towards the eSafety Commissioner, investing an additional $132 million over four years.
