Australia Versus Elon Musk

An Australian court on Wednesday ordered X to remove videos of the violent stabbing attack of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel during an April 15 church service. Elon Musk, the owner of X, denounced the court’s decision as an attack on free speech.

Australia’s eSafety commissioner, a regulator overseeing online safety, ordered social media platforms to remove the video. While other platforms obliged and X hid the content from Australian viewers, Musk refused to delete the video for the global audience.

Fined: Because of this stance, an Australian judge issued an injunction against the company. X now faces daily fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Elon Musk took to X to voice his concerns about the censorship.

‘Above the law’: Australian politicians have weighed in on the case. Even the prime minister is calling for censorship, saying that Musk is “a billionaire over there in the United States, who thinks he is above Australian law.”

Another strong advocate against Musk is Federal Sen. Jacquie Lambie.

That is absolutely disgusting behavior and, quite frankly, the bloke … should be jailed. And the sooner that we can bring rules in or do something about this sort of game-playing with our social media, the better off we’re going to be. But quite frankly, the power that man has because of that platform that he’s on, it’s gotta stop. It has absolutely got to stop.
—Jacquie Lambie

Censorship: This is a dangerous trend of politicians and media calling for Musk to be jailed. Musk is a billionaire who not only owns one of the largest social-media platforms in the world, but is an outspoken believer and endorser of free speech.

Australia is not the first country to target Musk, and based on the increasing demand for government control and censorship, it won’t be the last.

Learn more: Read our recent article “The Global War on Free Speech.”