Musk fights to stop censorship
Should violent or graphic videos be posted on social media or should they be censored?
On 15 April, 2024, Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was violently stabbed multiple times while delivering a sermon to worshipers at a Sydney church.
Graphic footage of the terror attack from a livestream was captured and shared widely on social media platforms. This has ignited a furious debate over whether the video should be removed or allowed to stay on social media.
Online safety in the spotlight
Australia's eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant heads the nation’s independent regulator for online safety, a regulator that lauds itself as the ‘first government agency committed to keeping its citizens safer online.’
The eSafety Commissioner has been afforded powers by the Online Safety Act (OSA), which was first established in 2015. The Act underwent major reforms after the mass shooting in Christchurch was live-streamed by the gunman and shared widely on social media in 2019..
OSA 2021 (Part 8) now provides the eSafety Commissioner “with powers to request or require ISPs [internet service providers] to block access to material that promotes, depicts, incites or instructs in abhorrent violent conduct.”
In response to the recent church stabbing in Sydney, the eSafety commissioner swiftly wrote to social media companies requesting they remove the graphic video from their platforms.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, complied with the request, but X only removed the content from Australian audiences, leaving it readily accessible to international users.
X’s owner Elon Musk, resisted censoring the content worldwide, saying Grant didn’t have jurisdiction over the world’s internet access, and that she’d over-reached in demanded his platform "globally withhold these posts or face a daily fine of $785,000."
X’s Global Affairs team stated, “Global takedown orders go against the very principles of a free and open internet and threaten free speech everywhere.”
War of words down under
A war of words erupted between Musk and Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Musk posted jibes and taunted Albanese on the platform - Albanese hit back by calling Musk an “arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law.”
Politicians from all sides of the aisle have joined the pile-on.
Senator Jacqui Lambie, for example, called Musk a “social media knob with no social conscience” and said she wanted him locked up.
“That is absolutely disgusting behaviour and quite frankly, the bloke should be jailed,” she remarked in an ABC interview and then deleted her X account in protest.
Senator Tanya Plibersek called Musk “egotistical” and used the attack to advance her political agenda to gain support for the controversial Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation bill 2023.
“We tried to introduce a misinformation and disinformation bill last year,' said Plibersek, “Sadly the Liberals and the Nationals didn't support it at the time. Peter Dutton and Susan Ley said they will now – that’s good.”
The mainstream media were no more objective. Major newspapers were in lockstep with the government and some dedicated their front pages to mocking Musk.
Federal police commissioner Reece Kershaw also objected to the availability of the video online, suggesting people could perform copy-cat crimes.
“You don’t want it to add fuel to the fire, in the sense of people being able to download it and be inspired by it,”said Kershaw.
The court weighs in
This week, a Federal Court ruling granted a temporary suppression of the footage - the takedown order refers to 65 tweets containing the video of concern.
Musk, who describes himself as a ‘free speech absolutist’ says this is an issue of free speech and has received support from an unlikely person - Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel himself.
“I do acknowledge the Australian government’s desire to have the videos removed because of their graphic nature,” said the Bishop in a public video after sustaining non-life-threatening injuries.
“I do not condone any acts of terrorism or violence. However, noting our God-given right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion, I’m not opposed to the videos remaining on social media,” he added.
Notably, in the video, the Bishop expressed great concern over anyone using his attack to advance their own political interests or to suppress free speech, which is likely to be a blow to the government’s case against Musk.
Musk’s lawyers plan to use an affidavit provided by the Bishop to argue their case when court resumes on 10 May 2024.
Personally, I came across footage of the Sydney knife attack on X and found it very distressing to watch. I’d prefer if that type of violence had a warning or caution label so that children could not be exposed.
Interestingly though, last week I came across similarly disturbing footage of the man who set himself on fire outside the courthouse where Trump is currently on trial, and I didn’t see politicians seek to censor that particular video.
Nor did they seek to censor the disturbing video of George Floyd in 2020 when he was pinned to the ground, being choked to death and begging for his life. In fact, this footage was widely shared on social media by the same people now calling for censorship. (NB: this was prior to Musk’s Twitter takeover (now X))
Rather than review the legalities of this case, I decided to seek the perspective of Andrew Lowenthal. Based in Spain, Lowenthal is a digital rights expert, Twitter files journalist, and founder of Liber-net - an organisation focused on free speech and civil liberties.
DEMASI: Thanks for joining me, Andrew. What’s your impression of all this?
LOWENTHAL: A terrible attack has happened in Australia and rather than have a sensible conversation about the relationship between the media and violence, we have bureaucrats and politicians utilising this tragedy to push for online changes that would otherwise not have been open to them. I think they've harnessed the public mood, to push these major changes to the digital landscape and push for censorship.
I also sense inconsistency and hypocrisy in their approach to this video online. It was a very different reaction to the footage of the self-immolation of the guy outside the courthouse where Trump’s hearing is being held.
DEMASI: I agree with you about the inconsistency of it all. Now, I personally found the Sydney attack very disturbing to watch… should we really have to be exposed to this sort of violence?
LOWENTHAL: I don't think people are being exposed to it, people chose to go to those places and access that content. I agree this content is obviously terrible for people to be watching but it is newsworthy, and I think to mitigate the impact, there should be better warning labels of such content on X and other social media platforms – that will allow people to choose whether they want to be exposed to it.
I'm not a fan of this sort of violent imagery on these platforms either, but my concern is that because of the inconsistency and how the eSafety commissioner has been applying her diktats, it makes me lose trust. It makes me unsure about their motives.
DEMASI: What are your concerns about the eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant?
LOWENTHAL: My concern is that she's coordinating with a variety of international initiatives that have questionable origins. For example, she has ties to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue Digital Policy Lab, which coordinates with US intelligence agencies – that’s a problem for me because it suggests that her primary concern is not our “safety.”
DEMASI: Your recent Substack, and also Michael Shellenberger on Public, mentioned that she has boasted about having significant regulatory power and using her “big stick” to censor content on platforms….
LOWENTHAL: I think her approach is too confrontational…
DEMASI: Like she's on a power trip?
LOWENTHAL: Yeah, I think she speaks down to people and that has turned many people against her. The fact that so many people are defending the right of X to keep this horrible footage up on social media, tells you about the lack of trust people have in these institutions and how strongly people feel about free speech.
DEMASI: X claims that she demanded a *global* removal of the footage. What do you think about that? Imagine if China demanded censorship of content it didn’t like on a global scale.
LOWENTHAL: If that is true, then that would be a major problem because that sets up one country as an arbiter. It has been widely reported that way, but the Commissioner has not confirmed this yet – we’ve only heard it from Musk’s Global Affairs team, so that remains to be confirmed.
DEMASI: Remember the Black Lives Matter protests? I remember seeing video of George Floyd begging for his life as he was being choked to death. Mainstream media behaved very differently in relation to that video – they actively circulated it….
LOWENTHAL: That’s the inconsistency and the hypocrisy I’m talking about. There’s inconsistency in how these rules are applied. That’s why the eSafety commissioner is losing the trust of many people, and consistency is absolutely foundational to trust.
DEMASI: So, can you speculate why they are making this an issue now? What’s significant of this attack in Sydney?
LOWENTHAL: Firstly, I think politicians need to be seen to be doing things, especially after a tragedy. And secondly, I think they’re trying to give new energy to the proposed Misinformation and Disinformation Bill which didn’t seem to have much support last year.
DEMASI: Yeah, Senator Plibersek boasted that the government had bipartisan support for that bill since the Sydney attacks in Wakeley church and Bondi Junction….
LOWENTHAL: Right, they’re riding off the fact that there was misinformation spread about the attacker in Bondi Junction last week. I don’t think misinformation played a role in either incident – the church incident was a religiously motivated attack and the mistaken identity of the Bondi Junction attacker may have started on social media but it was actually mainstream media that did the major distribution of the misinformation….Channel 7 was responsible for the fact-checking, so they did the damage – and interestingly – mainstream media is exempt from the government’s Misinformation and Disinformation bill. So, I think it’s a case where politicians are behaving opportunistically for political gain.
DEMASI: Interestingly, the Bishop supports Musk keeping the footage on X now. The one thing that does give me pause though, is the concern that people might be “inspired” to do copycat crimes…. that’s a legitimate concern, isn’t it?
LOWENTHAL: I agree, it's a legitimate concern, but I don't know if the answer is to try and scrub the internet of every last remnant of a video that depicts violence. Any person who is troubled enough to consider copying such an act, will be able to find it if they want to.
DEMASI: Right, I suppose violent footage is not exclusive to X. Violent or x-rated footage appears on other platforms and it remains freely accessible and available.
LOWENTHAL: Absolutely. And I must say, I don't completely agree with the high position Musk is taking at the moment. I think there are legitimate concerns about exposing people to this violence, and while I don’t support censorship, there should be warning labels on that kind of content. I think videos should not auto-play for example…
DEMASI: Oh, yes, the video of the church stabbing came across my feed and it just played automatically. And as soon as the 11seconds ended, it played again on a loop. That was disturbing…..
LOWENTHAL: Yes, that’s what I mean. Viewers should be warned of violent content before it plays. It should not just play automatically on a someone’s feed.
DEMASI: So, are you saying that Musk needs to compromise here? He says he is a free speech absolutist.
LOWENTHAL: My impression is that Musk is being too rigid in his response to all this. I think there are non-censorship ways of addressing community concerns. I find the conversations going on at the moment are too rigid, too binary. We need to get out of that loop.
DEMASI: So, the Federal court has issued a temporary injunction to remove the footage and the case will resume in court on May 10….what should happen now?
LOWENTHAL: Well, I think legally, Musk should obey the courts, but I suggest that Musk and the eSafety commissioner should explore less censorious approaches to dealing with legitimate concerns about graphic and violent social media content. X already puts “Community Notes” on things, it's not censorship to label content if its x-rated or violent. I’m not even against a move to make explicit content algorithmically ranked down so that it’s not just popping up in people’s feed. You could make it so that you have to go out of your way to find it…..
DEMASI: Yes, the church stabbing popped up in my X feed from an account that I’m not even following…..
LOWENTHAL: Right, but if there is going to be a down-ranking of explicit content, it must be done in a very transparent way. As I say, there are lots of ways of dealing with this, that don’t involve just an “on off” switch.
DEMASI: OK Andrew, thanks for your insight.
Julie Inman grant's horrific assaults on free speech are so disturbing to me that I wish they would be banned from publication. She is a cold-blooded murderer of human rights and wants us all to watch as she slaughters decency and freedom with haughty self-righteousness. This is a disgusting spectacle no one should have to read about. Yes, I'm all for censorship of "unsafe" information. That is why Australia's efforts to promote censorship must be censored.
Also, re community notes - I wouldn't trust them. On a different adventure with twitter I'd got three strikes on 'misinformation' for completely true tweets - one talking about how infected cells are killed as part of the immune response, and the other two mentioned, (not a hard sell) just mentioned ivermectin. As a consequence of those three strikes I'm not allowed to be a contributor on community notes.