Watchdog wins urgent court bid to make X take down stabbing videos

Australia’s online watchdog won an injunction to force Elon Musk’s social platform X to hide videos of last week’s Sydney church stabbing as a high-powered ministerial taskforce leads a bid to tackle online algorithms pushing anti-women influencers.

Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton have joined the many politicians savaging digital platforms in recent days as momentum grows for new laws to assert Australia’s sovereignty after Musk rebuffed Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant’s take-down orders, calling them “unlawful and dangerous”.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland and Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones have slammed tech giants following Sydney’s stabbing incidents.Credit: Ben Symons

Late on Monday, Inman Grant launched a Federal Court bid to force X to comply with the order. The court found in favour of the Australian regulator on an interim basis and decided the videos should be removed by putting them behind a notice within 24 hours. The order also applied to Meta, which Inman Grant said last week was co-operating with her demand to take videos down.

Another hearing is likely to be held later this week.

Barrister for X Marcus Hoyne said his client was given next to no notice of the hearing, meaning he had no time to receive instructions on his arguments. X was informed of the hearing at “the last possible moment”, he said. Hoyne indicated X would fight the order.

Christopher Tran, acting for the eSafety Commissioner, said videos should not be left on X to potentially radicalise people, even though X had claimed it had geo-blocked the videos so they could not be seen in Australia, except for those using VPNs.

Elon Musk and his social media company X face a court battle in Australia.Credit: AP

Last week, Meta said it would comply with the commissioner’s take-down order, but after ignoring the threats of fines for several days, on Saturday, Musk’s company made clear it would not co-operate.

Musk’s swipe at the Australian regulator sparked a backlash in Canberra, with Albanese arguing it was extraordinary the tech baron was not complying with an order described by the X owner to his 181 million followers as a “global content ban” a communist regime might order.

Albanese said on Monday: “We know some of the misinformation including naming some innocent bloke as the perpetrator [of the Bondi attack] is just extraordinary … and that was replicated.

“We need to recognise that, and social media has a responsibility.”

Early on Tuesday morning, Musk responded to the prime minister’s attacks on X, re-posting a screengrab of Albanese’s remarks with the comment: “I’d like to take a moment to thank the PM for informing the public that this platform is the only truthful one”.

The political clamouring for new rules to curb social media has troubled some free speech advocates and cast a spotlight on a broader federal agenda tackling online misinformation.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland told this masthead a group of top ministers was working to counter the “the vectors for harms” on digital platforms.

Rowland chairs the group which also includes Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil, Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth and Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones.

“[Video] recommender systems and algorithms do serve up harmful content that can not only promote eating disorders and contribute to poor mental health, but also vile and misogynistic stereotypes about women,” Rowland said, as many community leaders sound the alarm about messages pushed by influencers such as self-declared misogynist Andrew Tate, who is facing charges of rape and human trafficking.

The ministers in the online working group have all asked their departments to examine how to combat the damage caused by the algorithms that amplify claims made by distressing or false social media content.

Findings from that review, to be considered by the ministerial group later this year, could tie in with recommendations from a separate review of the Online Safety Act.

Due in October, that review is looking at new penalties for a broader range of bad behaviour online, while weighing up introducing a duty-of-care requirement for tech giants to protect citizens, particularly children.

As reported by this masthead last week, the two Sydney stabbing events strengthened Labor’s resolve to take on foreign-owned social media firms through anti-misinformation laws and rules forcing them to fund local journalism.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said on Sunday he would be open to examining a rejigged Labor bill to clamp down on misinformation, though the opposition was fiercely critical of a draft bill last year. Civil liberties and religious groups were also worried by elements of the bill.

The Albanese government also pursuing reforms on abuses of artificial intelligence such as deep fakes used to misrepresent the views of prominent figures such as billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest and science communicator Dr Karl Kruszelnicki.

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