The temporary ban was put in place April 22, but the judge
rejected the application from Australia’s eSafety Commission to extend the
court order that would have expired Monday.
Australian Federal Court Justice Geoffrey Kennett said he
would publish his reasons for imposing and lifting the order later.
The decision was a win for the company rebranded by
billionaire Elon Musk when he bought Twitter l ast year. X was alone among
social media platforms in refusing to remove video of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel
being stabbed. Musk has argued that he is standing up for a freedom of speech
principle. Australian lawmakers have accused him of arrogance and of lacking a
sense of social responsibility.
“Not trying to win anything. I just don’t think we should be
suppressing Australian’s rights to free speech,” Musk posted on X after the
ruling.
X is also taking a separate court action against eSafety
Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, a former Twitter employee, that challenges the
validity of her notice requiring the platform to remove video of the April 15
attack in an Assyrian Orthodox church. The judge is expected to consider
setting a hearing date Wednesday.
Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones said the government might
consider changing Australian law after reading Kennett’s reasons for removing
his order that required X to hide the video from users. “There’s a fundamental
principle at stake and that is, if you’re a company or anybody operating in
Australia, then you’ve got to abide by Australian laws,” Jones said.
He also said the government supported Inman Grant’s stance
on the video. “She made the right decision in our view to ensure that that
dangerous, violent, harmful material wasn’t being propagated online and
encouraging and inciting that sort of behavior here in Australia,” Jones said.
A 16-year-old boy was charged with terrorism-related
offenses in the stabbings of the bishop and a priest who were injured in the
attack.
X has geoblocked Australian users from the content, but
eSafety wants a worldwide ban on the video, which can be still accessed from
Australia through VPNs.
An eSafety lawyer, Tim Begbie, described X in court last
week as a “market leader in proliferating and distributing violent content and
violent and extremist material.”
Begbie said Australia could not be expected to conform to
X’s “pro-free speech stance.”
“The fact is that that stance is in large measure illusory.
Because X doesn’t stand for ‘global removal is bad’ in some pure sense,” Begbie
said.
X’s own policies repeatedly refer to circumstances in which
the platform will elect to remove content globally, Begbie said.
“The real position is this: X says that ‘reasonable’ means
what X wants it to mean,” Begbie said.
“Global removal is reasonable when X does it because X wants
to do it. But it becomes unreasonable when X is told to do it by the laws of
Australia,” Begbie added.
A 16-year-old boy was charged with terrorism-related
offenses in the stabbings of the bishop and a priest who were injured in the
attack.
X has geoblocked Australian users from the content, but
eSafety wants a worldwide ban on the video, which can be still accessed from
Australia through VPNs.
An eSafety lawyer, Tim Begbie, described X in court last
week as a “market leader in proliferating and distributing violent content and
violent and extremist material.”
Begbie said Australia could not be expected to conform to
X’s “pro-free speech stance.”
“The fact is that that stance is in large measure illusory.
Because X doesn’t stand for ‘global removal is bad’ in some pure sense,” Begbie
said.
X’s own policies repeatedly refer to circumstances in which
the platform will elect to remove content globally, Begbie said.
“The real position is this: X says that ‘reasonable’ means
what X wants it to mean,” Begbie said.
“Global removal is reasonable when X does it because X wants to do it. But it becomes unreasonable when X is told to do it by the laws of Australia,” Begbie added. AP