Since mid-April, the platform has been under a temporary injunction from the Australian courts, which required it to delete videos worldwide showing a knife attack in a Sydney church.
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A rare legal success for Elon Musk. An Australian injunction which required the social network X (formerly Twitter) to remove violent videos worldwide was suspended by an Australian court on Monday May 13.
Since mid-April, the platform has been under a temporary injunction from the Australian courts, which required it to delete videos worldwide showing a knife attack in a Sydney church. Until now, X had only agreed to make the content in question inaccessible to Australian users, but the videos were still available to those using a virtual private network (VPN) or other location masking service.
Avoid certain fines
The Australian regulator in charge of internet security, eSafety, had requested to extend this interim injunction pending further legal action, but the Federal Court of Australia rejected this request – without providing details on the reasons for his decision. This verdict could allow X to avoid certain fines: eSafety had threatened a daily fine of nearly $500,000, according to the platform.
Australian authorities fear that video of the attack, in which a bishop was stabbed by a 16-year-old boy and which was followed by a riot outside the church, could fuel tensions between religious communities . Since the Online Safety Act passed in 2021, Australia has been at the forefront of efforts to call for tech giants to be held accountable for what their users post online.
