Australia’s unbiased regulator for on-line security has ended its bid to take away a violent video from X (previously Twitter).
On April 15, a priest was stabbed in Sydney, Australia, and, like another horrific incidents lately, it was broadcast on-line. Australia’s nationwide regulator, eSafety, requested that each one social media platforms take down the video. Whereas eSafety claims Meta, Google, TikTok and extra eliminated it, X solely stopped Australian viewers from accessing the video — one thing a VPN can simply circumvent. When eSafety pushed for it to be absolutely taken down, X’s CEO Elon Musk referred to as the request an assault on free speech and argued that one nation’s legal guidelines could not management the whole world, The Register reported.
Regardless of dropping the combat towards X, eSafety additional reiterated their frustrations. “Our sole objective and focus in issuing our elimination discover was to forestall this extraordinarily violent footage from going viral, probably inciting additional violence and inflicting extra hurt on the Australian group,” Julie Inman Grant, the commissioner of eSafety, acknowledged. “Most Australians settle for this sort of graphic materials shouldn’t be on broadcast tv, which begs an apparent query of why it needs to be allowed to be distributed freely and accessible on-line 24/7 to anybody, together with youngsters.”
Grant notes that X did take down a video globally that compiled this assault with two different stabbing incidents. She additionally particulars the violence coverage X laid out to the European Fee final October as proof that the platform ought to take away the video solely. “…our service has clear guidelines that prohibit violent and hateful entities, perpetrators of violent assaults, violent speech, delicate media and the artificial and manipulated media coverage,” the passage states. “For the avoidance of doubt, we strictly adhere to our insurance policies regarding unlawful content material and we proceed to take away unlawful content material, together with terrorist content material, from our platform.” In that vein, she calls taking down the video a “cheap request” for X to take.
