Musk defiant vs order to remove X stabbing videos

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese calls X owner an ‘arrogant billionaire’ broadcaster

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Tech bad boy Elon Musk on Tuesday vowed to challenge demands that his social media platform X take down videos of a recent Sydney church stabbing.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese lashed out at Musk, who he described as an “arrogant billionaire” who “thinks he’s above the law.”

“The idea that someone would go to court for the right to put up violent content on a platform shows how out-of-touch Mr Musk is,” Albanese told public

Australia’s Federal Court on Monday gave the platform 24 hours to remove videos of an Assyrian bishop being slashed in the head during a recent attack.

Australia’s eSafety Commission had sought the court injunction saying X ignored earlier removal notices.

Musk lashed out at the watchdog Tuesday, saying the content had already been removed for users in Australia.

“We have already censored the content in question for Australia, pending legal appeal, and it is stored only on servers in the USA.”

As the deadline approached, the videos were not available to users in Australia, except for those using a VPN or other locationmasking service.

Musk claimed Australia was trying to enforce a global ban.

“Our concern is that if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian ‘eSafety Commissar’ is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet,” the billionaire posted on X.

Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was allegedly slashed in the head and chest by a 16-year-old suspect last week, sparking a riot by followers of the Assyrian Christian church in western Sydney.

Video of the bloody attack, which spread widely on social media platforms, has been blamed by Australian authorities for feeding tensions in the community.