Australian PM calls Elon Musk an ‘arrogant billionaire’ after X owner says government wants to ‘control the entire Internet’ over stabbing videos

Australia’s prime minister said Elon Musk is an “arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law” over his reluctance to remove footage of last week’s Church stabbing from X.

In response, Elon Musk thanked him “for informing the public that this platform is the only truthful one”.

The spat comes after a week of legal battles and public arguments between X and the Australian government.

So what’s going on?

Last week, two clerics at Sydney’s Assyrian Christ the Good Shepherd church were stabbed while live streaming a service.

Soon after, videos of the stabbing began circulating on social media. The Australian eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, issued notices to Meta and X to get them removed.

The videos were classified under Australian law as ‘class 1’ material, depicting gratuitous or offensive violence with a high degree of impact or detail.

Sky News ran some footage of the moments before the stabbing.

When the notice was issued, Meta complied and removed the videos from their platforms. X, however, announced it would challenge it.

X did block the videos in Australia but the government’s eSafety department argued this wasn’t good enough as the posts were still accessible globally.

Debate over ‘control’ of internet

On Monday night, eSafety got a legal injunction requiring X to hide the videos globally but it hasn’t responded to that yet.

Now, Elon Musk has accused the eSafety commissar, whom he previously nicknamed the “censorship commissar”, of wanting to control the internet.

“Our concern is that if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet?” he posted on X.

SOURCE: SKY NEWS