A federal senator has shared the unedited violent footage of the Wakeley church stabbing attack as a feud continues over X's bid to be able to host it on its site.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday morning hit backat "arrogant" billionaire Elon Musk after he made comments goading Mr Albanese on his social media platform X.
Mr Musk is feuding with Australia's eSafety commissioner over an order to remove graphic footage of last week's Sydney church stabbing, and on Monday night faced a defeat in court when it ruled Xmust temporarily pull the posts from its siteuntil the next hearing date.
Overnight Mr Musk twice posted comments mocking Australia's prime minister, suggesting X's refusal to remove the violent videos left it alone among social media platforms as a defender of free speech.
"I’d like to take a moment to thank the PM for informing the public that this platform is the only truthful one," Mr Musk wrote.
Mr Albanese retorted that Mr Musk's comments only exposed his arrogance.
"This guy is saying more about himself than anything else, he's putting his ego and putting his billionaire's dollars towards taking a court case for the right to put more violent content on what will sow social division and cause distress," Mr Albanese told Channel Nine.
"The other social media operators accepted the decision of the eSafety commissioner.
"It just shows his arrogance really, if he doesn't see that this is essentially a common sense position by the eSafety commissioner."
Federal senator shares violent video on social media
Since the court decision, federal senator Ralph Babet, elected under the banner of Clive Palmer's United Australia Party, has posted a clip on X and Facebook of bishopMar Mari Emmanuel being stabbed in open defiance of the federal government's efforts to wipe the footage from the internet.
"This opinion piece contains the video that the Australian Government has gone to the Federal court to have removed. I WILL NOT REMOVE IT. Without free speech our nation will fall. The Liberal party, The Labor party and the eSafety commissioner are a threat to democracy," Senator Babet wrote on a post containing the video.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said Senator Babet's behaviour was "appalling" and he should explain "why he's sharing harmful content".
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young agreed.
"It shows a total lack of respect for the victims, a total lack of respect for our law enforcement, our emergency people," Senator Hanson-Young said.
"The parliament will have to respond … and I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see a censure. But frankly he's an attention seeking git."
The feud erupted after videos were posted online of the attack at Wakeley, NSW, which the eSafety commissioner last week ordered social media companies to pull from their sites.
X has vowed to continue fighting the eSafety commissioner's order, after claiming the commissioner had threatened the company with daily fines of $785,000 if it did not remove the videos.
Its initial move to restrict visibility of the content to people in Australia was deemed insufficient by the commissioner, because people could still access it from Australia using a Virtual Private Network, which can mask a person's actual location.
Following the social media response to the Wakeley church stabbing and the murder of six people in the stabbing attack at Bondi Junction Westfield, the government has renewed its focus on reintroducing laws that would toughen standards for social media companies.
Mr Albanese said the parliament was united on the issue.
"This is not a partisan issue and I thank the opposition and crossbench, everyone is just strong on this," Mr Albanese said.
"This isn't about censorship. It's about common sense and common decency. And Elon Musk should show some."
Speaking on ABC Radio National, Senator Jacqui Lambie offered a frank assessment.
"He's an absolute friggin' disgrace, and there's nothing else to say about Elon Musk."
Meta details its response
Meta, the corporate owner of Facebook and Instagram, meanwhile detailed a very different response to the stabbing attacks than that of X.
Meta was initially given a take-down notice by the eSafety commissioner, who deemed it also was not taking adequate steps to protect Australians from violent material.
In a blog post, Meta said within an hour of each of the attacks, it had assembled an emergency response team to identify and respond to any content that was posted and communicated with authorities, including police and the eSafety commissioner.
The attacks were designated by Meta as "multiple victim violence" and "terrorism", allowing the company to remove perpetrator accounts and any glorification of the attackers or attacks.
Meta staff also fact-checked posts that wrongly identified the Bondi attacker — which, once rated, were used to reduce distribution of those same claims made by others — and added a label to those posts.
Meta said when it received the removal notice from the eSafety commissioner, the company "quickly responded" to confirm it was already pulling posts subject to the notice.
Posted, updated
