Elon Musk's X celebrates victory for free speech in battle against Australian censorship

Top line

Elon Musk celebrated a victory for his X platform on Wednesday after Australia dropped a lawsuit forcing the site to hide videos of a violent church stabbing, ending a bitter feud between the freedom-crusading billionaire of expression and the Australian government as it considers other ways to challenge the platform. Strategies.

Highlights

Crucial quote

“Free speech is worth fighting for,” Musk said in an X post in response to a comment about the Australian regulator's decision to drop the case.

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Key context

Musk is a self-styled defender of free speech and despite substantial criticism and pressure from lawmakers, users and civil society to soften his views, the billionaire has made his vehement opposition to censorship a defining one of his tenure at X. Social media platforms have acceded to demands from Australian authorities to remove videos of the stabbing attack on Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel as he delivered a sermon, but they have questioned the limits of the authority's power. Australia and pushed back. While recognizing Australia's right to control content and enforce laws within its borders (it hid videos in Australia), X refused the regulator's request to remove the content globally entire, which he said was necessary to prevent Australians from seeing it online. X qualified such a request for surpassing oneself, threat to freedom of expression and attack against “the very principles of a free and open internet”. Musk's stance on the issue has brought him into conflict with Australian elites, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who called him an “arrogant billionaire” lacking any sense of social responsibility for his company.

Forbes Rating

Musk is the richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of $208.4 billion. He recently surpassed LVMH titan Bernard Arnault and Amazon's Jeff Bezos, who are worth $203.1 billion and $197.2 billion, respectively. Musk is a member of the “PayPal mafia” for his founding role in one of the payment service's predecessors and is best known today for the cohort of companies he leads, including Tesla, Neuralink, Boring Co., SpaceX, xAI and X.

Further reading

ForbesElon Musk's X wins victory against Australian government over church stabbing videosBy Robert HartForbesElon Musk's SpaceX prepares fourth launch of massive space rocket – how to watch it and why it mattersBy Robert HartForbesElon Musk is arguing with the 'godfather of AI' Yann LeCun (again) – here's whyBy Robert Hart