PM slams 'egotist' Elon Musk over Sydney stabbing posts on X

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has fired back at billionaire Elon Musk, labelling the X boss arrogant for refusing to follow a Federal Court order to remove violent videos of the Wakeley church stabbing.

The prime minister told Today the removal of “extremely violent video content” from the Sydney terror attack was “common sense”.

It comes just hours after Musk mocked Albanese’s social media crackdown by posting on his personal X account a cartoon showing the platform with the words “truth and freedom” and an alternative path to “censorship” and “propaganda”.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Don’t take my word for it, just ask the Australian PM! pic.twitter.com/ZJBKrstStQ

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 22, 2024

Musk posted above the cartoon with the message: ”Don’t take my word for it, just ask the Australian PM!”

Albanese said the billionaire was putting his interests above the court case.

“He is someone who is totally out of touch with the values that Australian families have,” he said.

“He’s putting his ego and putting his dollars towards taking a court case for the right to put more violent content on that will cause distress to people who are on his platform.

“Other social media operators have accepted the decision of the eSafety commissioner.

“This is something that’s not a partisan issue here in Australia, everyone’s just strong on this.”

Elon Musk mocked Albanese’s social media crackdown by posting on his personal X account.

Australia’s online safety regulator won a court bid yesterday to force the social media platform X to remove videos of the alleged terrorist attack at a church in Sydney

After the alleged attack, eSafety said it worked cooperatively with other companies, including Google, Microsoft, Snap and TikTok, to remove the same material.

However the regulator took umbrage with X Corp and Meta, the parent company of Facebook.

eSafety said the two companies “were not taking adequate steps to protect Australians from this material”, and issued both with formal notices to remove material from their platforms.

“Surely social media needs to have some element of social responsibility,” Albanese said.

“This is essentially a common sense position by the eSafety commissioner.”