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eSafety abandons case against Elon Musk’s X Corp
The eSafety Commissioner has abandoned its court action against Elon Musk’s social media platform, X Corp, over its failure to take down the violent video of the Wakeley church stabbing.
Naomi Neilson
In a statement on Wednesday (5 June), commissioner Julie Inman-Grant said she had discontinued Federal Court proceedings against Musk’s company before it could head to a hearing.
“After weighing multiple considerations, including litigation across multiple cases, I have considered this option likely to achieve the most positive outcome for the online safety of all Australians, especially children,” Inman-Grant said.
“Our sole goal and focus in issuing our removal notice was to prevent this extremely violent footage from going viral, potentially inciting further violence and inflicting more harm on the Australian community.
“I stand by my investigators and the decisions eSafety made.”
When the video of the stabbing first surfaced on social media, the eSafety Commissioner ordered X and Meta – the owner of Facebook and Instagram – to remove all material from their platforms.
Tim Begbie KC, counsel for the commissioner, said the video not only captured the moment Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was stabbed during his sermon but also contained audio of people screaming.
Meta complied with the order, but X Corp refused.
While it contemplated its own legal action, X Corp “geoblocked” the material to restrict users in Australia from viewing the video.
However, this could be evaded with a virtual private network (VPN).
In the statement, Inman-Grant said a “key issue of concern” was the ease by which children could access the video.
“Other major social media platforms and search engines complied with our requests and removal notices … because the video violated their terms of service and their standards of decency,” Inman-Grant said.
“So it was a reasonable expectation when we made our request to remove extremely graphic video of an attack, that X Corp would take action in line with these publicly stated policies and practices.”
Begbie said the global removal notice could have been complied with “very readily and easily” by X Corp, particularly as it already has policies in place to remove harmful content from the site.
“By that, I mean there would be obvious scope for X to remove the stabbing videos within its own policies, but [it] has chosen not to.
“The real position is X says reasonable [steps] means what X wants it to mean. Global removal is reasonable when X does it … but it becomes unreasonable when X is told to do it under the laws of Australia,” Begbie told the court in early May.
Inman-Grant said the commission welcomed the opportunity to test its regulatory powers under the Online Safety Act.
“eSafety remains committed to exercising the full range of provisions available under the Online Safety Act to hold all tech companies to account without fear or favour, ensuring they comply with the laws of Australia and prioritise the safety and wellbeing of all Australians.
“We will not waver from this commitment,” Inman-Grant said.
There will now be a merits review into the commissioner’s decision to drop proceedings by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
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Naomi Neilson
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
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