Australia drops legal battle against X over church stabbing footage – JURIST

Australian Electronic Security Commissioner Julie Inman Grant announced in a press release on Wednesday that Australia had abandoned its legal battle against Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter) over graphic images of a church stabbing in Sydney be removed from the social media platform.

Grant said: ““I have decided to abandon the proceedings before the Federal Court against X Corp”, after the expiration of numerous legal proceedings and the temporary injunction to hide the video on the platform. The commissioner described her decision as “likely to achieve the most positive outcome for the online safety of all Australians, particularly children”.

Video of the incident, which occurred on April 15, showed a A 16-year-old boy allegedly stabbed Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel as he gave a live-streamed sermon at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley, Sydney. Grant questioned the ease with which minors could watch this stabbing video on and why it should be allowed to be distributed freely.

X's Global Government Affairs team celebrated the news, writing that it is “I am heartened to see that freedom of expression has prevailed.

In the first response to the video that went viral in April, the electronic security commission asked globally, withhold these publications under penalty of a daily fine of 785,000 AUD. The Federal Court also granted an interim injunction requiring X Corp to conceal the Class 1 content that was the subject of eSafety's removal notice dated April 16, 2024.

The Global Government Affairs team at violating X's rules on violent speechand “The eSafety order did not fall within the scope of Australian law.

After challenging the injunction in court in April, X geo-blocked the content in Australia, which users were able to bypass using a VPN.

Although it has now abandoned this legal action, the Electronic Safety Commission is committed to maintaining the spectrum of authority provided in the Online Safety Act to protect Australians from significant risks online.