The eSafety Commission has abandoned its Federal Court case to remove videos of the Wakeley terrorist stabbing on Elon Musk’s social media platform X and will now test the validity of its powers through the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
X, formerly known as Twitter, claimed a major victory last month after Federal Court Justice Geoffrey Kennett lifted a temporary order to hide videos of the stabbing across its global audience, which the social media giant never complied with.
Following the April stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in a western Sydney church, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant invoked the Online Safety Act, passed by the Coalition in 2021, to demand the removal of “class 1 material”.
The legal fight sparked a brawl over freedom of speech and online harm, fuelled by Mr Musk’s claims of censorship and debate over unfettered powers of social media giants to allow publication of violent and extremist content.
In his decision to deny the eSafety Commissioner’s application to extend an interlocutory injunction on footage posted by X, Justice Kennett said a global ban was not a “reasonable” step under Australian law because it would be “ignored or disparaged in other countries”.
Ms Inman Grant on Wednesday said “I have decided to discontinue the proceedings in the Federal Court against X Corp in relation to the matter of extreme violent material depicting the real-life graphic stabbing of a religious leader at Wakeley in Sydney on 15 April 2024”.
Australian Newspaper
