Australia has dropped its legal battle to have graphic footage of a church stabbing in Sydney removed from Elon Musk’s social media platform X.
The attack on Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in April, which police declared a terror incident, was livestreamed online and led to riots outside the Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley.
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, an independent regulator, had threatened X and other social media companies with substantial fines if they did not remove videos of the stabbing, citing concerns that the content could incite further violence.
The case was viewed as a test of Australia’s ability to enforce its online safety regulations on social media giants.
The Federal Court had temporarily ordered X to hide the videos, but X refused to comply, claiming the order was not valid.
X, formerly known as Twitter, eventually blocked access to the video in Australia, although users could easily bypass this restriction using a VPN.
Commissioner Julie Inman-Grant, who previously worked for Twitter, had requested the video be removed globally. This led Elon Musk to label her a “censorship commissar.”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese responded by calling Musk an “arrogant billionaire.”
In a statement on Wednesday, Ms. Inman-Grant explained that, considering “multiple factors,” dropping the case was “likely to achieve the most positive outcome for the online safety of all Australians, especially children.”
“Our sole goal and focus in issuing our removal notice was to prevent this extremely violent footage from going viral, potentially inciting further violence and inflicting more harm on the Australian community,” she said.
She added that she stood by the decisions the eSafety Commission had made – and the Minister for Communication Michelle Rowland said the same in parliament on Wednesday afternoon.
In a statement on X, the firm’s Global Government Affairs team said they were “heartened to see that freedom of speech has prevailed”.
It had previously argued the commission’s orders were “unlawful and dangerous”.
“Global takedown orders go against the very principles of a free and open internet and threaten free speech everywhere,” it said in a statement.
“This was a tragic event and we do not allow people to praise it or call for further violence,” it added.
Ms. Inman-Grant told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Wednesday that Mr. Musk’s attention led to a pile-on from his millions of followers, resulting in death threats and the exposure of her children’s personal information online.