Elon Musk's X to challenge Australian content takedown orders in court

Elon Musk's X, the artist formerly known as Twitter, has vowed to commence court action against Australia's government over orders to take down content depicting violence and violent extremism. The content depicts two recent knife attacks – one a multiple murder at a shopping center and another in which a Christian bishop was …

[Anonymous Coward]

>Twitter, has vowed to commence court action against Australia's government over orders to take down content depicting violence and violent extremism. The content depicts two recent knife attacks

What a ridiculous response.

They should follow NZ's example and have a compulsory steak knife buyback, and a butter knife register. That'll stop it in it's tracks.

After that the PM can ask Musky nicely if he'd like to send someone really junior to a summit where they can undertake to do nothing at all.

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

What's fascinating in this whole saga is that it managed to get the opposition to see eye to eye with the government. It reminded me a bit of that undocumented Winston Churchill "quote" about Americans doing the right thing (eventually).

[Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch]

X basically live-streamed the attempted murder of a religious leader from a notoriously religiously sensitive geographic region. It was then one of the main rumour distribution networks for the messages that provoked the riot that followed. During that riot dozens of police cars were vandalised and paramedics had to shelter in place for more than three hours.

This is a public order issue, not a free speech issue. Famously there is no legal right to shout "fire" in a crowded building. Free deliveries of petrol to people in a burning building whether they want it or not is wrong and stupid.

Musk is loudly proclaiming his right to be wrong and stupid. $750k/day fine is a good start to remedying that. Long may he fight. X might be good at dodging compulsory taxation, but they look to be rubbish at avoiding the voluntary ones.

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Also a few days earlier a white Australian murdered six people in Bondi, five of them women, and the usual shit stains immediately began spreading rumours that it was a terrorist attack by brown people. These people need to be deplatformed before we have a repeat of the Cronulla riots.

[Mooseman]

"he usual shit stains immediately began spreading rumours that it was a terrorist attack by brown people"

And in one case that it was by a jew. History repeats itself...

[Catkin]

Isn't it a jurisdiction issue? Specifically, that the Australian government is demanding power over what people see outside its borders. Even if the recording is of an event within Australian borders, that seems like overreach.

[Sora2566]

By that logic, no country can slap regulations on any cloud-based organisation at all.

If Elon doesn't want to be subject to Australian law, all he has to do is completely pull Xitter out of Australia altogether. Until he does that, he's still on the hook - at least for that part of his business.

[Catkin]

Sorry for being unclear, I didn't mean jurisdiction apropos controlling what is presented to someone accessing the site from within Australia but rather controlling what is seen by users outside Australia.

[abend0c4]

The thing about jurisdiction is that it basically comes down to the ability to enforce and it's true that would be difficult if Twitter has no presence in Australia. However, for as long as Twitter wants to have a presence in Australia, the government can make that conditional on anything it likes, within the bounds of whatever the constitution permits.

[Catkin]

I completely agree that they can. My concern is that this will Balkanise the Internet if it continues. In my view, it is better for a government to not make demands which impact the communications of people in other countries because otherwise we all risk ending up as prey to the most censorious government able to exert their will.

This may be a case of stopped clock syndrome but I view this specific attempt (as far as demands over globally viewable content) to be a very reasonable thing to make a stand on.

[abend0c4]

The "moral" argument works the other way too: should companies accede to demands to censor content even just within a country or should they simply pack up and move out? Equilibrium will ultimately be established between the opposing forces (though perhaps the loss of Twitter wouldn't now be symbolically significant in the way it might once have been).

In this instance, you can see Australia's case in that the consequences are most likely to be felt locally - but, slippery slope, etc. And while hard cases make bad law, they can be of short term benefit to the legislators, so another moral balancing act.

I think it's quite useful that there will be a legal challenge - it's in everyone's interests to have clarity, if only as a precursor to further debate.

[Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch]

Zuckerberg tried that vs. the Australian government a few years ago. He tried to instigate a user rebellion against laws saying he had to pay authors to post links to their work, as far as news generation was concerned. Faecebook's users told him to shut up and get on with it, which he did.

[Michael Wojcik]

Oh, please. The users had nothing to do with it. Someone at Facebook ran the numbers and decided they'd rather pay Murdoch his tariff in exchange for keeping that chunk of audience for advertisements.

Frankly, if I'd been running Facebook, I would have just pulled out of Australia.

[MachDiamond]

"Frankly, if I'd been running Facebook, I would have just pulled out of Australia."

That's a tough thing to quantify. If lots of people are using FB to keep in contact with friends and family elsewhere in the world, shutting down in Australia will have a much bigger effect. There will be plenty of people that will move to other platforms (or none at all and use email, zoom, etc) to keep in touch. Another domestic company could step in and provide similar services and be profitable since they wouldn't be competing with FB over that market.

[MachDiamond]

"This may be a case of stopped clock syndrome but I view this specific attempt (as far as demands over globally viewable content) to be a very reasonable thing to make a stand on."

Taking a stand on government demands to censor things outside of their borders makes sense, but there's also an aspect of how that's done. Elon is well known for being childish and brash. He could have come out and made a measured statement that X will "respect the wishes of Australia to regulate content available to the public within its borders but will not comply with regulations/censorship of anything available to those outside of those borders" and left it at that. It's has a maturity level far above "if you don't like it, just sue me. Nananananana."

There's more to Elon's empire of dirt than just his huge money burning pit, X. He also has to consider the backlash that could hit Tesla, Starlink and other ventures he's a major participant in. Governments and most particularly politicians can be extremely childish too. While Australia might not be a huge market for Tesla, it would put a big crimp in the company if a law was passed that made requirements on equipment on/in Tesla vehicles that would be expensive to implement and maintain. They could require that the cars could not have "autopilot" or surveillance mode installed forcing Tesla to maintain a code base only applicable to Australia. Naturally, the law would be written to include all makers, but the principal target would be obvious. A more obvious target would be limitations on Starlink. If X were banned in Australia, there would also be locks on what Starlink could provide since the ground stations to support the satellites would be in-country. There could be a requirement that no ground stations outside of the country can be used to facilitate internet connections being provided to Australian customers. This last isn't very unusual already when it comes to satellite communications. If Elon's actions precipitate bans on Starlink, that's a whole continent denied and a bigger problem as Australia has a large population that can afford it in contrast to most of Africa where the average annual income is barely enough to buy essentials.

[Bebu]

Not America...

《However, for as long as Twitter wants to have a presence in Australia, the government can make that conditional on anything it likes, within the bounds of whatever the constitution permits.》

The AU constitution is very different creature quite unlike that of the US. Not carte blanche to slaughter your fellow citizen with the firearm of your choice, or even a bill of rights.

It largely deals with the separation of powers, relations between the various governments and structure of the federal legislature and judiciary.

It suspect it would impose very few constraints on the Commonwealth's ability to legislate in this area. Using section 92 to object would be drawing a rather long bow, nailing legs onto a dead horse.

Musk's antics are likely to lose what few remaining Australian twitter users that are still within cooee of sanity.

In any case after this Australian institutions will start closing their twitter accounts and removing their presence.

Australians are a bit odd in that unlike their american cousins they would prefer their local news footage to have as little similarity to the comparable US material which ressembles nothing so much as an endless stream of snuff movies.

I would imagine the Commonwealth already has powers to compel network providers to block traffic from any source. Many states still have Victorian era obscenity and public decency laws on their books which could be dusted off and revived.

[jmch]

As I read the article, they are not contesting the ban on showing the video to Australian users but the ban on showing it to anyone, anywhere, and on that point I am in complete agreement (from a legal perspective of Australian law binding Twitter to worldwide behaviour).

As to the videos, I haven't seen them although I heard about the incidents. I would think that if they are very graphic, that Twitter might have some internal guidelines about graphic violence (or maybe not??) and if that is the case they don't need any government interference to block content.

[John Brown (no body)]

Likewise, not seen the offending videos, but from the reported depictions, I suspect many jurisdictions would feel the same about showing them and even if Twitter had a vague sense of morality, they'd voluntarily block them. Maybe AU are stretching their ban too far and broadly, and that's the issue. I can't tell from here but if the video are showing the actual violence happening, as reported, then I'm pretty sure hosting and making them available breaches UK and probably most EU countries laws too, at the least.

[Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch]

For the time being, the court has said that as long as the footage remains visible anywhere, then X is in violation of the instruction from the AU government to take down the graphic violence. The court found that geoblocking was an inadequate response, because VPN circumvention is easily accessible.

Interestingly, X tried to avert an interim injunction by arguing that it was 2am in San Francisco and that their lawyer had not had sensible instructions from their client.

There has been no argument from X to the court claiming that keeping the footage visible in Australia is justifiable. Allegedly attempted murder is fine for everyone in the world to see, as long as it doesn't happen where you live.

[Chet Mannly]

Spot on. If Australia gets to ban stuff worldwide then China (and every other country) will be lining up to demand the same right to censorship of anything they don't like worldwide - that's why Elon is pushing back.

[Medixstiff]

What I find interesting, is for once the Aus government is not using the usual "Think about the children" BS line that they use for usual censorship they want to put in place. Now if they did that and asked X to limit the availability of this type of graphic content to minors, old Musky wouldn't have a moral leg to stand on, because if that turns into an avalanche of other countries requesting the same, he's screwed, how could he in any way that makes sense justify showing knife attacks to kids? Except for those at terrorist training camps?

[Mooseman]

"hat's why Elon is pushing back"

No, Elon is pushing back because he's a nasty little right wing troll and he doesn't see that laws should apply to him.

[Spazturtle]

Most countries these days hold the opinion that their laws apply to the entire universe, they just can only enforce them within their boarders.

About 20ish years ago man murdered his foreign girlfriend whilst living abroad and flew back to the UK, he was arrested in the UK for murder. He admitted that he had done it but tried to get the charges dismissed as it had happened overseas. The judge refused by saying that he didn't care where it happened and that the murder act doesn't state any geographical boundaries.

[Catkin]

You wouldn't happen to have the name of the suspect, would you? I couldn't find a specific case around that date. In my view, that's distinct because murder is generally regarded as a crime by almost every authority that I'm aware of but I'd like to read the case to understand if there's any unusual specifics.

In my view, this is more akin to the decision process behind the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, not to downplay his sacrifice or elevate Musk. That is, a specific government sought to prevent the dissemination of information which is legal in other jurisdictions because they found it objectionable. I view this as generally undesirable (including in the absence of direct punishment of individuals) as it grants governments the ability to censor information harmful purely to them or their goals with no remit for those documenting their behaviour from abroad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Prolly not the same case but interesting use of jurisdiction

https://www.cps.gov.uk/south-east/news/peruvian-murder-conviction-british-court

“Our legislation gave us the jurisdiction to take on the case, although usually the country where the crime was committed would extradite the individual to face justice there. However, the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 gives courts the powers to try a defendant in this country"

[Anonymous Coward]

National jurisdiction over individuals for actions committed overseas is a tricky issue, only because it can be advocated for both good and evil.

Case in point: Rubiales' case. The infamous forced kiss to woman football player Hermoso after winning the World Cup, besides all disciplinary actions taken by UEFA to finally demote him (because national organisations were unwilling to, to add insult to injury), had been taken into courts, as a recent legal change here in Spain deemed all sexual abuse acts strongly punishable if the counterpart was unwilling to: the sólo sí es sí or only yes is yes law.

Previously, a court demonstrable physical opposition by the other party was required for conviction, so in practical terms many cases were left with the abuser free to go, which became a serious problem in a wave of recent cases of chemical submission, which where ultimately de facto legal abuses: only the forced drugging was punishable, and hardly so if stealthy done as usually happens.

So Rubiales challenged his indictment because the abuse trialed happened abroad, while Spanish courts dismissed his claim because it happened between Spanish nationals and so has prevailing jurisdiction. Not sure if this will escalate all the way up to the Constitutional Court, although quite likely: Rubiales has the resources to do so and will enable him to drag the case for several years.

[MachDiamond]

"The judge refused by saying that he didn't care where it happened and that the murder act doesn't state any geographical boundaries."

Many countries have laws that cover their citizens committing crimes outside of the country. There can also be treaties in place to cover major crimes. There are people that will travel to other countries where they will do heinous things as the laws in that country are non-existent or lax. Since those crimes can be "beyond the pale", their home country make it a crime to travel to those places to do that thing.

I think in this case the offense doesn't achieve the same level of badness.

I've seen a portion of the video that ended right at the point where there was bloodshed and have no need to see any more to establish a goodly portion of what happened. I think that edit is a very good compromise and not pointlessly stepping over a certain line.

[Mooseman]

"20ish years ago man murdered his foreign girlfriend whilst living abroad and flew back to the UK, he was arrested in the UK for murder."

It would be more likely that wherever he committed the crime issued an international arrest warrant for him, and HM Gov detained him under that warrant, presumably so he could be flown back to face trial?

[Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch]

The point which was made in court was that, due to VPN circumvention of geoblocking, if it's visible anywhere, it's visible in Australia. Therefore the court (at least, on an interim basis) has been asked to order it taken down with global effect.

[mark l 2]

The issue doesn't appear to be that the Australian gov want the horrible video to be blocked just for Australian Twitter users in Australia, which Twitter had agreed to do, but also have it blocked world wide.

Now on this occasion the video sounds to be something that shouldn't be available to view on social media anywhere and Twitter should remove it on the grounds of decency, but I can also understand why Twitter is fighting against a government trying to use their laws to demand a world wide block.

As if the AU gov are successful in their national law affecting what everyone can view internationally, then what is to stop another country passing their own local laws that mean social media posts they find objectionable also being removed for everyone.

An example is if a whistle blower was using social media to bring up human rights violations by a regime, would be want a country to be able to pass a national law that made social media companies legally required to remove all posts world wide that criticized that government?

[Chet Mannly]

100%. We'd end up with a great firewall of China worldwide...

[Michael Wojcik]

Famously there is no legal right to shout "fire" in a crowded building.

Famously this canard is, as Ken White put it, "the most famous and pervasive lazy cheat in American dialogue about free speech" and you and everyone else needs to stop repeating it.

"This is a public order issue". Yes, that's certainly one of the most popular excuses for suppressing expression. Congratulations; you've passed Repression 101.

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Elon About To Learn That Australians Really Enjoy Making Life Hard For Famous People From Overseas

[Magani]

Ah, you've gotta love the Betoota Advocate!

Have a XXXX.

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

And Elon Musk – Dead at 52 – Says There Is No Need for Misinformation Laws

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh fuck, I'm gutted. I had no idea. Was it cancer, or did a pair of his baby mommas smother him while he was having a power nap under his desk at twitter hq?

[Anonymous Coward]

Boeing

I think Boeing Japan need put their backs into something useful like making sure they build safe fucking planes globally and forget the Jetsons for 50 years.

[seven of five]

Re: Boeing

Absolutely.

>Boeing bringing flying cars to Asia

Personally, I'd think they should start with "flying planes" - but who am I to know aerospace enigneering...

>Boeing thinks Asia's congested megacities are ideal locations for flying cars.

Sure thing, a couple of well distributed fireballs is going to improve traffic soooooo much.

[Ken Shabby]

Re: Boeing

Flying car parachute, going cheap, only one owner.

Mine’s the one with the bolt spanner in the pocket.

[Anonymous Coward]

typo in the first sentence

"The arsehole formerly know as twitter" surely?

[EricB123]

This is Statesmanship?

"The CEO also revealed that Apple is committed to buying more components manufactured by partners in Vietnam, but seemed uninterested in having a direct presence."

Vietnam, a relatively poor but rapidly developing country, gets lip service.

""Next stop Indonesia, where outgoing president Joko Widodo met Cook and was told Apple is considering a presence in the nation – but without details or timelines."

Indonesia., another relatively poor but rapidly developing country, gets lip service as well.

"Singapore was next to receive Cook, and also received an actual concrete commitment: $250 million to expand its regional hub in the island nation."

But wealthy Singapore gets a firm $250 commitment.

Excuse me while I hurl a few chunks.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: This is Statesmanship?

I take your point, but I'm not sure "A government account of the meeting notes that since 2019 Apple has invested over $16 billion in Vietnam – making it the largest source of foreign funds." could be classed as "lip service".

[Anonymous Coward]

Same old

Entitled idiot Musk believes he should be allowed to monetise content intended to provoke disorder and bear no responsibility for it because "Muh freeze peach".

Maybe if the twat paid his bills, taxes, attention to ethical, moral and legal obligations then he'd not get himself in shit so often.

[Mitoo Bobsworth]

"Instant Arsehole -

just add unbridled hubris."

[CowHorseFrog]

Australia woul dbe a better place if twitter was banned.

[Will Godfrey]

The entire world would be a better place! Oh, and don't forget to include facebook.

[CowHorseFrog]

What a class act, you know you are classy when you cant even show respect to people who were killed and just leave them alone and rest in peace jus tso you can sell a few more ads.

Said it before and will say it again, ban third party advertising and scumbags like Musk just go away because no advertising no social media.

[Howard Sway]

the Commissioner does not have the authority to dictate what content X's users can see globally

If your brain has got so addled that you think it's "important" that people can gawp at videos of other people being murdered then you are just totally unfit to be in business. How a company that makes money from showing this stuff for clicks and advertising is allowed to exist is beyond me.

Would the Musk Snuff Movie Emporium be happy to host such a video in the name of "anti censorship" if it was one of his own kids being stabbed to death?

[Catkin]

Re: the Commissioner does not have the authority to dictate what content X's users can see globally

Perhaps consider the wider ramifications of governments strong arming corporations into controlling what individuals overseas are allowed to communicate to each other. Cases like this are chosen by governments precisely because it lets them conflate criticisms of their censorship with support for the specific act.

I agree that dissemination of the video is reprehensible but I would rather it continue if the only alternative is more and more foreign governments being allowed to determine what information I'm exposed to.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: the Commissioner does not have the authority to dictate what content X's users can see globally

"I agree that dissemination of the video is reprehensible but I would rather it continue if the only alternative is more and more foreign governments being allowed to determine what information I'm exposed to."

And yet, Twitter/X has an easy "out". Block the relevant videos using their own rules and simply make it clear that that is what they are doing. It feels like Twitter were slow to deal with it, AU Gov. decided to make a point of it and now Twitter is being stupidly stubborn just to save face instead of admitting they are made a mistake.

[MachDiamond]

Re: the Commissioner does not have the authority to dictate what content X's users can see globally

"How a company that makes money from showing this stuff for clicks and advertising is allowed to exist is beyond me."

Maybe you are too young, but there were videos "The Face(s) of Death" that attempted to make money showing gruesome photos and video.

I do think there is a distinction between a movie that should come with some control on the age of people that can purchase/view it and a public social media platform that has lots of younger people participating and many others that don't want that sort of content thrust in their faces. YouTube requires a sign-in /age verification for certain videos and topics. That isn't hard to circumvent, but it does take somebody making the effort to get around any blocks. If somebody really wanted to watch the full murder video on X, they "could" use a VPN to get around an geo-blocking, but only the most interested would do that specially. If the vast majority of users in Aus have VPN to bypass a nanny state, they should also be getting out to vote against these sorts to begin with.

[DS999]

I'm no fan of Musk

But he's right that one country shouldn't be able to dictate what everyone else around the world should see. If I post an image of Mohammed, should Iran be able to demand that's taken down worldwide? Some countries would demand any post with a pride flag be taken down, other countries would demand any post with a person holding an AR15 be taken down. Pretty soon all we'd be left with are cat videos, and then the dog people would come for them!

That said, that he thinks his site's policy should be to leave up video of people getting murdered shows what a POS of a human being he is. I'm sure if someone posted a video of one of his kids getting beat up in a schoolyard playground (because lets face it, with the names he's given them they will be beat up daily unless they're homeschooled) he'd immediately take that down and permaban the person posting it!

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: I'm no fan of Musk

Moron.

People dont realise that limits are actually true freedom. Letting people drive drunk on the roads doesnt help society, even if it does cut one of their freedoms.

You arent doing anyone a favour by supporting Musk here.

[MachDiamond]

Re: I'm no fan of Musk

"Letting people drive drunk on the roads doesnt help society, even if it does cut one of their freedoms."

If you want to try your hand at drink driving, you could get yourself a nice size property of your own and do it there. Freedom restored.

Most decency laws have more to do with where something is done more than what that act is. Your "freedom" isn't being restricted other than making sure it isn't trampling somebody else's right to not have to see it.

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: I'm no fan of Musk

Really you cant tell the difference between a great country like Australia who tries its best to stand for freedom and doing the right thing and ... ?

[DS999]

Re: I'm no fan of Musk

Standing for freedom is saying they have the right to demand something be taken down worldwide?

Are you going to be OK with China and Iran exercising that same power for worldwide takendowns from social media? Or only countries you "approve" of having that power?

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: I'm no fan of Musk

Are you so retarded that you cant tell the difference between Australia and Iran ?

[MachDiamond]

Re: I'm no fan of Musk

"any post with a person holding an AR15 be taken down."

Would an AK47 be ok in those places?

[MachDiamond]

Re: I'm no fan of Musk

"(because lets face it, with the names he's given them they will be beat up daily unless they're homeschooled)"

His spawn are privately schooled. Being the on again/off again wealthiest person in the world paints a huge target on his kids. Even the one that wants bits chopped off and nothing to do with him. I heard at one point they attended school at the SpaceX facility in Hawthorne. Sorta makes sense as there's lots of traffic in and out and its a big facility so carving out space somewhere and securing it wouldn't be all that hard.

[Anonymous Coward]

Orders to take down content depicting violence and violent extremism

Do they mean content that criticize our rulers?

“The shopping center attack saw a prominent Australian troll use X to falsely blame the incident on a Jewish man. That claim was also broadcast by a mainstream television news service.”

The attacker was captured on the live stream of the attack shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’.