Cross posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/13351707
Australia’s prime minister has labelled X’s owner, Elon Musk, an “arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law” as the rift deepens between Australia and the tech platform over the removal of videos of a violent stabbing in a Sydney church.
On Monday evening in an urgent last-minute federal court hearing, the court ordered a two-day injunction against X to hide posts globally containing the footage of the alleged stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel on 15 April. The eSafety commissioner had previously directed X to remove the posts, but X had only blocked them from access in Australia pending a legal challenge.
Anthony Albanese on Tuesday said Musk was “a bloke who’s chosen ego and showing violence over common sense”.
“Australians will shake their head when they think that this billionaire is prepared to go to court fighting for the right to sow division and to show violent videos,” he told Sky News. “He is in social media, but he has a social responsibility in order to have that social licence.”
“What the eSafety commissioner is doing is doing her job to protect the interests of Australians. And 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,” he said.
Musk is an ass, but this is a complex issue that goes way beyond Australia. Many govts are censoring content on social media within their countries. The last thing they need is precedent allowing them to remove videos from a platform entirely worldwide.
Yeah it’s a rare day that I side with Elon Musk but this just happens to be one of those days. Australia shouldn’t get to dictate what doesn’t get shown to people outside of their authority.
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It’s also a question of methods; a giant company simply ignoring an unjust law is typically a pretty poor way to challenge it (as always, there are exceptions). To the extent that Australia is claiming that Musk sees himself as above the law, that’s a pretty accurate charge, that holds whether the particular law in question is just or not.
Shorter version: fuck Musk, and also fuck countries claiming they can order takedowns beyond their borders. Both can be true at once.
X (twitter) is a signatory to the Christchurch Call set-up by Jacinda Ardern. Signatories agree among other things to suppress the dissemination of terrorism. Nobody is talking about this.
Signatories: https://www.christchurchcall.com/our-community
I checked the Christchurch Call website which clearly shows Xitter as a member of the community that agreed to:
“Take transparent, specific measures seeking to prevent the upload of terrorist and violent extremist content and to prevent its dissemination on social media and similar content-sharing services, including its immediate and permanent removal, without prejudice to law enforcement and user appeals requirements, in a manner consistent with human rights and fundamental freedoms. Cooperative measures to achieve these outcomes may include technology development, the expansion and use of shared databases of hashes and URLs, and effective notice and takedown procedures.”
Full text: https://www.christchurchcall.com/about/christchurch-call-text
What’s the relevance?
I agree with the Christchurch Call, that platforms, media and govts should avoid disseminating and giving publicity to terrorists and their causes. If Xitter were to take down content for that reason, I’d applaud them. However, that is a voluntary agreement that should be self-enforced by the signatories upon themselves. Nothing there gives Australia the right to determine for the rest of the world what content may or may not be shared online.
What’s the relevance?
If a company signs a public pledge and then breaks it, that’s worth knowing about.
I hate it when I agree with an autocrat.
Hitler liked dogs and said we shoukd be kind to them.
Thanks! That helps.
There’s a bunch of people here trying to suck some Elon dick. Interesting
Which comments? I read all of them, and saying, “he’s an asshole who happens to be right about this” hardly seems like “sucking his dick”.
This is a massive overreach by Australia. Countries should not be trying to mandate what content is acceptable for other countries. Even their argument about VPNs meaning that geoblocking won’t work is a terrible argument, because they’re basically arguing that X is responsible for stopping Australians from breaking Australian law.
Buying the idea that their citizens might circumvent security controls in order to access content they don’t allow, so that content cannot be allowed anywhere else, would be like saying it makes sense to ban mature video games globally because kids will find ways to play them otherwise (and I bring that up because Australia is notorious for banning video games with similar arguments, and didn’t allow mature games until 2013).
If China was telling social media sites to delete content that it doesn’t like, outside of China, we’d all be telling them to fuck off.
Lastly, and very important to note, the Bishop whose stabbing this is all about has said he thinks the video should not be censored.
