Tanya Plibersek has branded Elon Musk a “selfish billionaire” after the X owner vowed to defy the Australian government’s demands to remove harmful content from his social media platform.
Musk mocked Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant after she ordered the removal of videos showing the alleged live-streamed stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel.
Grant warned that if these posts were not banned, X, formerly Twitter, would face a “daily fine of $785,000,” but the Tesla CEO criticized the move.
“Australian censorship commissioner calls for *global* content bans,” Musk wrote on X on Saturday.
Now, Plibersek has counterattacked, stating that Musk’s position “is unbelievable.”
Elon Musk (pictured) mocked Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant after she issued a takedown notice for videos showing the alleged live-streamed stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel. Tanya Plibersek has called him a “selfish billionaire”
‘This selfish billionaire believes that it is more important for him to show whatever he wants on Australian community from the harmful impact of showing these terrible things,” Ms Plibersek told Sunrise.
The Environment Minister said the Albanese Labor government had “quadrupled the budget for the e-Safety Commissioner”.
The internet safety regulator lauds itself as the “first government agency committed to keeping its citizens safer online”.
“eSafety has powers relating to cyberbullying, image-based abuse and illegal and harmful online content,” its website states.
Plibersek said there was now bipartisan support for legislation aimed at addressing online misinformation.
“Last year we tried to introduce a bill on misinformation and disinformation,” he added.
‘Unfortunately, the Liberals and Nationals did not support it at the time. Peter Dutton and Susan Ley said they will do it now, that’s good.
‘We need to keep Australians safe from these terrible things on social media.
“Elon Musk is not dictating to the Australian government what we are doing here nationally with our laws.”
It is not the first time that Musk and Inman Grant, the eSafety commissioner, have clashed.
Last month, WhatsNew2Day Australia revealed that the online safety watchdog attempted to force a Canadian to remove ‘offensive’ post about trans Australian UN expert.
Chris Elston, who goes by ‘Billboard Chris’ in X and lives in Canada, shared a WhatsNew2Day story about Teddy Cook, an Australian female-to-male trans activist who landed a job at the World Health Organization (WHO). panel of experts that drafts care guidelines for trans and non-binary people.
In his post, Elston misgendered Cook and made other “derogatory” comments.
The eSafety Commissioner served him with an ‘expulsion order’, but refused to remove the post.
When X subsequently complied with the ‘takedown order’ by geo-blocking the post in Australia, Elston simply reshared the offending post.
In a colossal counterattack to the eSafety Commissioner, that post alone has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant told reporters last week that while most major social media platforms had engaged with the commissioner over his order to remove videos of the alleged church stabbing, there was still much to do.
In response to this publication’s story, Billionaire X owner Musk said, “Where is the world coming?”
X, which Musk bought in 2022 when it was called Twitter, later revealed that it was suing the Australian government over the takedown order to “protect its users’ right to freedom of expression.”
Ms Inman Grant used to work for Twitter under the old regime before becoming eSafety commissioner in 2016. She receives an annual salary of almost $445,000.
Ms Inman Grant told reporters last week that while most major social media platforms had engaged with the commissioner over his order to remove videos of the alleged church stabbing, much more needed to be done.
“I am not satisfied that enough is being done to protect Australians from this gratuitous and extreme violent material circulating online,” she said.
“That’s why I’m exercising my powers under the Online Safety Act to formally force them to take it down.”