eSafety Commissioner to abandon Elon Musk fight on bishop stabbing video

Lawyers for Julie Inman-Grant are set to abandon a legal fight blocking Elon Musk from allowing videos of a western Sydney bishop getting stabbed on his platform, X.

X Corp owner Elon Musk.

The eSafety Commissioner is set to abandon a legal fight blocking Elon Musk from allowing videos of a western Sydney bishop getting stabbed on his platform, X.

The Australian understands lawyers for Julie Inman-Grant have agreed to orders to back away from the Administrative Appeals Tribunal proceedings, which will see the videos of Bishop Emmanuel Mar Mari being stabbed at the pulpit return to the platform.

The revelations come on the same day Ms Inman-Grant had a win over X in the Federal Court, with a judge ruling she was right to issue an infringement notice to the platform for not providing information about how it was meeting basic online safety expectations.

In April, Ms Inman-Grant ordered X (formerly Twitter) to remove access to the video for Australian users, slapping the footage with a Class 1 classification, reserved for high-impact, violent or child sex abuse material.

While X complied with a take-down notice, “geo-blocking” the content, Australian users with VPNs could still watch the attack on the platform, and the tech company refused to totally remove the footage.

Ms Inman-Grant had also filed a case against X in the Federal Court pushing for the power to enforce global take-down orders, arguing worldwide censorship of offensive material is reasonable in light of the Australian parliament’s online safety legislation.

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Gran. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

But she axed that action in June, instead “consolidating” the two actions in the AAT, and saying she welcomed “the opportunity for a thorough and independent merits review of my decision to issue a removal notice to X Corp”.

Prior to that, the Federal Court had sided with X in refusing to extend a temporary order to block all Australians from viewing footage of the alleged terrorist stabbing attack.

Ms Inman-Grant did not wish to comment.

Ms Inman-Grant had a separate win against X in the Federal Court on Friday, after judge Michael Wheelahan found she was right to issue a $610,500 fine to the platform in September 2023.

The fine stemmed from an infringement notice issued by eSafety, because X Corp had not provided information about how it was meeting the Basic Online Safety Expectations in relation to child sexual exploitation and abuse material on its platform.

X took Ms Inman-Grant to court last year, challenging the fine issued against the company over failing to comply with the notice, and the validity of the initial direction.

Bret Walker SC, acting for the company, argued the notice did not apply because the company did not exist when the notice was issued. The notice was given to Twitter in February 2023, and X Corp came into being in March 2023.

“I accept the Commissioner’s submission that X Corp had everything it needed to know in order to consider the allegations made against it in the infringement notice,” Justice Wheelahan wrote in his judgment.

“X Corp has failed on all its claims. The proceeding will be dismissed with costs.”

The matter acted as a test of the commissioner’s powers under the Online Safety Act, including the issuing of notices for platforms to account for how they are meeting the government’s online safety expectations.