A United Australia Party senator has told the government and eSafety Commissioner to ‘f**k themselves’ after they ordered social media companies to censor footage from a recent alleged terrorist attack at a Sydney church.
Ralph Babet is staunchly opposed to attempts to wipe disturbing footage of both the Wakeley incident and Bondi Junction massacre from Meta‘s platforms and the Elon Musk-owned X, formerly Twitter.
After Meta complied with the order, the Albanese government and eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant are locked in a bitter standoff with Musk after he refused to do so.
Musk, who describes himself as a free speech absolutist, says Mr Albanese is effectively allowing Ms Inman Grant to ‘censor content for all countries’ on X.
A UAP senator has told the government to ‘f**k themselves’ after it ordered social media companies to censor footage from a recent alleged terrorist attack at a Sydney church
Ralph Babet is staunchly opposed to attempts to wipe disturbing footage of both the Wakeley incident and Bondi Junction massacre from Meta’s platforms and the Elon Musk-owned X
‘Should the eSafety Commissioner (an unelected official) in Australia have authority over all countries on Earth?’ the billionaire asked on his platform.
And he has found a friend in Mr Babet, who defied the government’s wishes by sharing the confronting footage himself.
Mr Babet argues banning such content from social media infringes upon personal liberties.
‘At no time in history have those pushing more censorship ever been the good guys,’ he said.
‘This has nothing at all to do with the recent knife attack and everything to do with censoring speech the government of the day does not like. The recent attacks are simply the excuse the government needed to further their agenda.
Mr Babet argues that banning such content from social media infringes upon personal liberties
Mr Albanese slammed Mr Musk as ‘arrogant’ for ‘putting his ego and his dollars toward a court case for the right to put more violent content on’
‘The eSafety Commissioner is also nothing more than an activist. She wants to censor the internet and censor debate and do it in a way that is consistent with her own ideological views.’
X was ordered by the Federal Court late on Monday to block all users from viewing footage related to an alleged terrorist attack by a 16-year-old boy on Assyrian bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel during a live-streamed service on April 15.
X has temporarily complied with the order in Australia while taking out a two-day injunction – but argued a global takedown order violates the principle of free speech.
‘We have already censored the content in question for Australia, pending legal appeal, and it is stored only on servers in the USA,’ Musk posted to X.
A failure to comply with a court’s ruling to remove posts could see X fined almost $800,000 a day and executives be held in contempt of court.
But the risk of fines hasn’t incentivised Musk to act at all. Mr Albanese slammed him as ‘arrogant’ for ‘putting his ego and his dollars toward a court case for the right to put more violent content on’.
X was ordered by the Federal Court late on Monday to block all users from viewing footage related to an alleged terrorist attack by a 16-year-old boy on Assyrian bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel during a live-streamed service on April 15
The alleged terror incident prompted riots in the streets
The PM noted this content would be likely to ’cause distress to people on his platform’.
‘He [Mr Musk] is someone who is totally out of touch with the values that Australian families have.
‘Other social media operators have accepted the decision of the eSafety Commissioner.
‘Surely social media needs to have some element of social responsibility. This is essentially a common sense position by the eSafety commissioner.’
Asked whether the commissioner could be granted stronger powers or if access to X in Australia should be cut, the prime minister said the government was looking at what measures could be taken.
‘No one wants censorship here – what we want, though, is the application of a bit of common sense so you don’t show and propagate violence online,’ Mr Albanese said.
Pictured: eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant