Yahoo Finance Elon Musk ‘choosing ego over common sense’ in row over bishop stabbing video
Elon Musk has been labelled an “arrogant billionaire” by the Australian prime minister in a row over footage of a church terror attack in Sydney.
Mr Musk was criticised by Anthony Albanese after refusing to block footage on X, previously known as Twitter, of the stabbing of a bishop last Monday.
The politician told ABC News that Mr Musk was an “arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law”.
He added Mr Musk was a “bloke who’s chosen ego and showing violence over common sense”.
It came after Mr Musk branded Julie Inman Grant, Australia’s eSafety commissioner, a “censorship commissar” as X pleaded for the right to keep the videos online.
In a tribunal late on Monday, the technology company said it had geo-blocked footage showing the stabbing of Assyrian Christian bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel last week in Australia. However, it was still available internationally.
Our concern is that if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian "eSafety Commissar" is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet?
We have already censored the content in question for… https://t.co/aca9E4uAB7— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 22, 2024
The court ordered X to widen its block on the posts, hiding them from all users until Wednesday.
The stabbing has been labelled by police as a terror attack and came just days after a mass stabbing at a shopping centre in Bondi Junction.
A 16-year-old boy has been arrested and charged over the church attack, in which four people were injured. The stabbing was caught on a livestream with the alleged attacker appearing to shout in Arabic.
Mr Musk vowed to challenge the block again on Tuesday, posting a meme referencing the Wizard of Oz and accusing rival technology giants of bowing to censorship.
The billionaire said: “We have already censored the content in question for Australia, pending legal appeal, and it is stored only on servers in the USA.”
He added: “Should the eSafety Commissar (an unelected official) in Australia have authority over all countries on Earth?”
