Peter Dutton walks back his support of Elon Musk

Peter Dutton has denied siding with tech billionaire Elon Musk, declaring he strongly supports the online safety watchdog’s legal action against X Corp.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton strongly supports the online safety watchdog’s legal ­action against X Corp while maintaining Australia ‘can’t police the whole internet across the world’. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Peter Dutton has denied siding with tech billionaire Elon Musk, saying he strongly supports the online safety watchdog’s legal ­action against X Corp while maintaining Australia “can’t police the whole internet across the world”.

The Opposition Leader softened his comments made on Thursday where he branded the eSafety Commissioner’s desire to order a total take down of content – rather than accept X simply blocking content being seen by Australians – as “silly”.

Mr Dutton said on Friday it was “not the case” that he was siding with Mr Musk and it was the ­Coalition that had given the eSafety Commissioner the power to issue take-down orders.

“My view is that the laws are there. We introduced them when we were in government to take down that sort of graphic, violent video so that it doesn’t influence in many ways, other people here in Australia who might watch it,” he told the Today Show.

Mr Dutton said his “basic starting point” was that laws that applied in real life “should apply online as well”.

While he “strongly supported” the eSafety Commissioner in exercising her powers, Mr Dutton said there was no use “pretending that Australia can dictate to other countries around the world what people see within their countries”.

“We wouldn’t tolerate that here (if) Russia could dictate what content is seen in Australia,” he said.

“So I just think we need to be ­realistic about what the options are here.

“We can’t police the whole internet across the world, but we can influence what happens in Australian society.”

Australia's eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant pursued legal action against X Corp, formerly known as Twitter, for its alleged failure to take down footage of last week’s alleged terrorist stabbing in a church in western Sydney.

Mr Musk lashed the online safety watchdog for its effort to have the content removed, branding the exercise as censorship.

Some members of the ­Coalition echoed Mr Musk’s comments and accused Labor of limiting freedom of speech.

However, Labor frontbencher Bill Shorten on Thursday said Mr Musk was “not a free speech warrior for the world”.