Australian PM pulls Is ‘Bloke who’s chosen self … over common feel ’ | The Hill
FILE – Elon Musk, who owns X, previously known as Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX, speaks at the Vivatech good, June 16, 2023, in Paris. Musk said Wednesday, Nov. 29, that marketers who have halted paying on his social media platform X in response to racist and other nasty stuff are engaging in “blackmail” and, using a profanity, basically told them to go away. ( AP Photo/Michel Euler, File )
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese slammed it businessman Elon Musk as a “bloke” who has chosen self “over common feeling” after Musk accused the state of repression.
“This is a gentleman who’s chosen self and showing violence over popular feeling, ” Albanese said in an interview with “First Edition. ”“ I think that Australians will stir their mind when they think that this billionaire is prepared to go to court, fighting for the right to cultivate division and to display aggressive videos, which are very disconcerting. ”
Musk, the owner of social media platform X, has accused Australia of repression after an American judge ruled that his system may stop users worldwide from accessing videos of a bishop who was stabbed in a church in Sydney.
The material was blocked in Australia but available elsewhere. The live feed of the April 15 church attack and related social media posts attracted a crowd of 2,000 people that led to a riot against police. It injured 51 police officers and damaged 104 police vehicles and barricaded the attacker inside the church , The Associated Press reported.
Albanese said Musk has a responsibility as owner of a social media platform. He said the eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, has made “very sensible suggestions ” to social media companies, but Musk “thinks he’s above the Australian law, that he’s above common decency. ”
“I’ll tell you what I say to Elon Musk, that he is so out of touch with what the Australian public want, ” he said. “This has been a distressing time, and I find this bloke on the other side of the world, from his billionaire establishments, trying to lecture Australians about free speech. ”
Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla, described Inman Grant as the “Australian censorship commissar. ”
X’s Global Government Affairs team said Saturday that Inman Grant ordered it to remove some posts that commented on the attack in Sydney but said the posts did n’t violate the platform’s violent speech rules. If the company does n’t remove the posts globally, it faces a daily fine of$ 785,000, the AP reported.
Albanese said it ’s a “sensible proposition ” and because Australia gives X “a lot of profit, ” he requests Musk abide by the ruling.
“No one is above the law. Not Elon Musk, not any Australian citizen, ” he said, later adding. “This should n’t be a matter of the law. It should be a matter of people doing the right thing. ”
The Hill has reached out to X for comment.
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