Elon Musk blasts Australia's 'censorship' after court orders X to take down terror attack video

Elon Musk slammed Australia's prime minister on Tuesday after a court ordered his social media company X to remove footage of a terror attack against a Sydney cleric — arguing the decision could effectively allow one country to control "the entire internet."

Musk has come under fire from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and government officials for not deleting the video showing a teenager stab a priest and two others last week.

X had geo-blocked the footage from its Australian users but did not delete the clip from its servers. Australia's e-Safety Commissioner argued the content should be taken down since it showed explicit violence.

"Does the PM think he should have jurisdiction over all of Earth?" Musk wrote on X.


The billionaire, who bought X in 2022 with a declared mission to save free speech, posted a meme on the platform that showed X stood for "free speech and truth" while other social media platforms represented "censorship and propaganda."

Albanese hit back at Musk, saying the country would "do what's necessary to take on this arrogant billionaire who thinks he's above the law, but also above common decency."

"The idea that someone would go to court for the right to put up violent content on a platform shows how out-of-touch Mr Musk is," Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for e-Safety, Australia's internet regulator which was created in the wake of the Christchurch mass shooting in 2019, said the takedown notice was for the attack footage only, and not for "commentary, public debate or other posts about this event, even those which may link to extreme violent content."

"While it may be difficult to eradicate damaging content from the internet entirely ... eSafety requires platforms to do everything practical and reasonable to minimize the harm it may cause to Australians and the Australian community," the spokesperson added, in a statement.
Although Musk wrote in another post that X had "blocked the content in question for Australian IP addresses", the video could be seen on the platform by a Reuters journalist in Australia.

A far-right senator also reposted the video on his X account.

On Tuesday, Facebook and Instagram owner Meta said it had used "internal tools" to detect and block copies of videos of the church attack and an unrelated, deadly stabbing at a shopping mall in Sydney two days earlier.

Meta said it was removing posts containing "any glorification or praise" of the incidents.

This is the second government Musk's site has clashed with in the last three weeks.

Earlier this month, a supreme court judge in Brazil ordered X to block certain accounts, though Musk's site initially refused to comply.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes has given X until Friday to explain why it allegedly did not fully comply with earlier rulings ordering the company to block the accounts.