Australian Cybersecurity Regulators Stop Lawsuits Against Elon Musk's X

Australian e-Safety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant (right) (photo: x @twee boxules)

Australia's cybersecurity regulator on Wednesday, June 5 decided to stop lawsuits against X Corp, owned by Elon Musk, over the removal of a video stabbing aOURsic church bishop in Sydney, after a failed month ago in federal court.

Judge Geoffrey Kennett in May rejected the efforts of eSafety commissioners to extend interim orders for the social media platform to block videos of knife attacks, which Australian authorities refer to as terrorist attacks.

Australian e-Safety commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in a statement that regulators had decided to stop their legal action against X.

"Most Australians accept that this type of graphical material shouldn't be on live broadcast television, which raises clear questions as to why it is allowed to be distributed freely and accessible online 24/7 by anyone, including children," Grant said.

He said the main concern was the ease with which children could access violent content on X.

Grant said he initially gave X a notification to delete the video to prevent a "violently full of threats from going viral", potentially inciting further violence and causing more harm to the public.

"Unfortunately, we can't order YouTube to block videos, even though we've asked Google to do so, and the video is still available on other platforms," Grant said.

A 16-year-old teenager has been charged with terrorism charges for an attack that allegedly took place in April.

This legal dispute has sparked a fierce exchange of words between Musk and senior Australian officials including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who called Musk "an arrogant billionaire" because of Musk's objection to the removal of the video. Musk has posted a meme criticizing regulatory orders, describing it as a censor.

While other platforms such as Meta, TikTok, Reddit, and Telegram, pulled the video when asked.

X has blocked Australian users from being able to view the post but declined to delete it globally on the grounds that one country's rules should not control the internet in other countries.

However, regulators argue that geographic blocking for Australians, the solution X offers, is ineffective as some users use a virtual private network that hides their location.