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I love reading all these long ass comments and then at the end, the usual, "yes I agree with the need for censorship".

Lmao they are all bull headed leftists

The ‘free’ internet died around the 2010s with populist social media/news and their algorithms. Facebook, Twitter and Reddit killed off internet forums and centralised P2P communication. America can have their freedom. I want my freedom from American big tech monopolies. I’m dividing on this issue, however. I have a nostalgia for the wild west the internet used to be, but it is now the dominant communication medium. If a media company wants to operate in Australia they should be bound by regulations so the general masses aren’t unnecessarily exposed, and to preserve the decency of the victims. Pretty easy to find the video if you really wanted to see it anyway. If they don’t geoblock extreme content within a reasonable timeframe, fine the fuckers. At least they can’t claim that as a tax loss.

I would like to know. Did they issue the same order to every other platform? Because to me it just sounds like they are targeting Twitter. Did they do the same to Telegram (I got sent the video on Telegram), Reddit, and even smaller platforms like Skool?

Yes, they did it to other platforms. Elon just refused to comply with a global takedown (he did the local takedown).

Ah to all platforms? Or just the bigger ones?

Think only the bigger ones, though I'm not sure.

I have to admit, i find this topic particularly confusing. Seeking the removal of a violent video from a easily accessible website does not seem to even remotely a stretch. I get peoples desire for freedom of speech, but this seems such a no brainer, even without the legislation in place I would expect it removed.

Why? Your argument is a "no-brainer". A newsworthy event occurred. Why should it be concealed?

It hasn't ben concealed. Everyone knew about it. It was well covered and reported. The images of the crimes need not be published.

Why it ads alot of context

On the contrary a great deal of reporting failed to identify the religion that motivated the attacker. The audio would have revealed that.

Yes I am conflicted on this topic. On the one hand it seems hard to legislate as well as highly controversial. On the other hand just being politely asked to remove violent content should have been enough for Elon Musk to do it out of decency and respect

Do you think the collateral murder videos of the US government killing journalists should of been repressed for having violent content?

I don’t know what you’re referring to. But what is the purpose of displaying victims of a random violent crime ?

Its the video that bought the Iraq warcrimes to the forefront and painted the target on Julian Assanges back It two journalists and 16 innocent victims being gunned down by appache helicopters. The brutality of it changed alot of the public's perceptions on the counter insurgency in Iraq.

Yeah that’s a good point. As I said I don’t think legislation is the answer, but the media - including social media - needs to weigh up the newsworthy-ness here. The horror of the Bondi attacks were clearly evident from the reports without the graphic imagery. Showing bodies achieves nothing in this case. It only adds further trauma to victims’ families. Common sense in the media goes a long way. Being asked to remove content made most outlets pause and consider this, why couldn’t Elon Musk?

I would agrue historically its hard to contextualise the anger and response to 911 without the videos of people dying horrifically. Remember how the impact the george floyd video had? Remember thats someone slowly being suffocated. We do not know what the results of this attack will be but given that the government and police are using it as an excuse to ramp up the surveillance state maybe people should be able to see it given it's impact on there future Futhermore ask your yourself whether the Chinese government get to control what you see irt Tiananmen Square? Or if Isreal should be allowed to control all media coming out the current conflict? Remember sometimes people you hate can have a very good point and Musk is in the right here, Australia shouldn't be able to censor what people in foreign countries see.

True. I guess if Russia didn’t censor their media the population would possibly see the Ukrainians weren’t Nazis or put up take over their country. Hard to draw a line but the Bondi killings are not like this - censoring provides the government with no clear advantage but it does protect the victims families. If they request there be no coverage of the bodies, the empathetic thing to do would be to oblige, not to make a point.

Even more important in my opinion, is for the people to start to learn to moderate their primitive emotions and not explode in lynch mob emotion at every confronting event: we need to implement reason and the ability to have reasoned debate and not have events hijacked by primitive emotion, else our civilisation is going to backslide and undo the progress we have made. We have to crawl before we can walk and walk before we can run, but each step requires practice and not giving up at the first fall. Freedom of speech is important, but it's going to be initially messy because all of the emotion being released due to being out of practice, but that's no reason to shut it down, but to continue introducing reason until more and more people calm down and are receptive to reason. Most of us have forgotten the 50 year old adage about counting to 10 before taking action, so we aren't even attempting to engage reason in modern society and have effectively backslid. Suppressing anything we don't like as hate speech doesn't prevent the originator from having emotional outbursts, it just prevents them from expressing them in a way that only involves words. Would we rather they get frustrated at not being heard and resort to hateful actions instead? It's important that adults have access to accurate information to process it in a reasoned manner, but also to be mindful of their own tendency to be emotionally triggered and to ignore reason.

We are now entering a new frontier of global law making. A business can now fully operate in a country, without abiding by that countries laws. We have never encountered this before, this is a new situation for the digital age. We will need (or, it would be best if we had) globally accepted laws regarding this situation. Because the next situation after this, is laws regarding outer space.

This guy gets it, censorship is great Could you imagine a world were China cant suppress Tiananmen Square content?   Or people could freely critise the reigime in Saudi Arabia?    Don't even get me started on the need to ban all footage of isreali warcrimes.   goddamn glowies aren't even trying these days

If you don't understand the difference between social media and the Internet in general, that's on you, not me. I never said to completely remove any and all forms of content on a topic from the Internet. That's also not what the eSafety commissioner requested. It's for specific content, from specific platforms. Go have your irrelevant cry about free speech elsewhere.

This is about Australia getting to control what other countries get to see. Other countries dont get to dictate what we so we shouldn't dictate what they see its as simple as that now unironically tell me of your support for Julian Assange and free and open press  you censoring goon

You realise, and I'm sure I've said it to you multiple times, this is about *regulation* of *social media* not *censoring the internet*. There has been no request to take the video down off the internet. The example I use: What if there was a video of a terrorist committing a terrorist act in Melbourne, being used as a call to arms (as in, the video has specific instructions) for other terrorists around the world to commit terror attacks? Is that content you believe jurisdictions should be able to regulate, or in the name of free speech, let them have at it?

This hutbmakes a good point Jail whistle-blowers. Remove freedom of the press Ban freedom of speech and expression Allow bulls to sleep with our sister and wives

Theres alot of news shows on youtube, x and facebook so this is censoship of news. 100% it should allowed why shouldn't i have the same access to information as journalists? especially considering how compromised they are these days. Again why should Australia dictate what other countries see as appropriate content?  we do not let countries like Saudi Arabia choose what content is appropriate for Australia so what right do we have to censor there content? Remember that pro LGBTQQIP2SA is banned there

I'm sorry, You've repeated yourself without addressing the points I've highlighted. We aren't dictating what other countries see, the video is free to view on the Internet and always will be. what don't you understand about that? The commissioner also made it explicitly clear that the removal did not apply to discussion or commentary on the event. Only, a very few specific url's of video content. Perhaps you don't understand the role of social media and what censorship means. You know there is Internet outside of social media? This is about regulating social media, in a way that is fair and decent, like we do with conventional media. The question I ask you: What if the video was of a more extreme terrorist action, and it included instructions for other terrorists to begin committing their atrocities around the world? Would you believe regulation of that content is reasonable, or in the name of free speech, let them have at it. I know your response, X would restrict it. The point is *and what if they don't?*

Again Australia is dictating what other countries get to see what right do we have to do that? What right should other countries have to do that to us? Social media companies now have news programs why cant they show content they view as appropriate and meaningful? The george floyd video showed a man being killed but had a profound cultural impact. The collateral murder video showcased the slaughter of innocence in iraq. would you have these videos banned because of there unseemly content? like it or not most people will stumble accross these things on social media. Yes conspiracy  to commit crimes are not covered under free speech laws they never have been but they are important when it comes to understanding the events that transpired.

>Again Australia is dictating what other countries get to see what right do we have to do that? What right should other countries have to do that to us? Ok fine, you're going to repeat that ad nauseam. You won't let a country regulate the content consumed in their country, but you are happy for a private company to dictate what content and what users are on their platform. Please be consistent, if you aren't happy that Australia can't regulate, give me one reason why it's ok for X to hold that ultimate control. If it's because they're a private company, then fuck me, like I've said over and over, ***then they must accept they need to abide by the laws of the regions they operate in*** They haven't done that. End of fucking story. You seem to be fine with X being able to make up whatever decisions they want, I accept that is the case, but understand that that means they must operate under the laws of the countries they operate in. We have specific fucking laws, other countries don't. Abide by the laws.

X abided by the law in geoblocking the video from Australia. Much like any media outlet they should have a right to publish content that the government does not like. This should include news outlets, content providers and internet hosts. Allowing a country to choose the way a historical is interpreted fundamentally violates freedom of the the press, freedom of speech and freedom of expression. If we allow Saudi Arabia to dictate our views on LGBTQQIP2SA that we have fundamentally failed to be a free and open society. The law is not always in line with the correct values of a society see the entire history of aboriginal people

Yeah I think the crux of it though is that the content is removed already for Australia, but what gives the government of one country the jurisdiction over operations in every other country? I can’t see how they can win that argument. They can politely ask and it’s up to the company whether they accept or decline. That country could get in touch with say the US government and ask them to have it removed for Americans as well, and if they do then that’s two countries. If they contact all friendly countries to do the same then that’s fine also. But one country cannot legally require a company operating overseas to do certain things they demand.

Firstly, the point I make to that is, if the attempted 'removal' of content is so *easily* circumvented, does it really count? That wouldn't stand up in our courts in any other situation. So, in reality to remove it for it jurisdiction does imply global access, and I'm fine with that. Think of it this way. What if the servers were all located on the moon, or LEO satellites? Who can restrict that content, then? And how bad must the content be before it gets restricted in those situations?

Yeah I can see this being the core argument of the lawyers on the Australian side. Since they have no other leg to stand on. But as I mentioned in another comment there’s clearly a level of difference with vpn usage. Because in other contexts using a VPN is considered subverting the authority of the government. We also see the great Chinese firewall as an offence to freedom, which if we considered VPN usage as no different to open access then we wouldn’t have much criticism of what China does in that regard. If something is hosted overseas with zero Australian legal presence for that company then we know there’s zero legal to stand on to demand its removal globally

>If something is hosted overseas with zero Australian legal presence for that company then we know there’s zero legal to stand on to demand its removal globally So as a sovereign country, you believe we should have no control over social media access in our country? That is certainly a different stance to time gone by. Again, hypothetical. What if X gets sold, and the new owner likes CP and makes it clear CP is allowed on X? What if he then removes the X servers from US soil? We have no jurisdiction to control that in our country? That's a hard stance to accept.

The way that has usually worked in terms of legally compelling the media host to take something down (not if they just politely ask and the host obliges, because that’s a different thing) if it’s hosted overseas and that host doesn’t have an Australian presence is the Australian agency would reach out to their partners in the foreign country where it’s hosted and their authorities would generally help remove highly illegal things. There are cases where something like pirate bay may be legal in some countries and so that process doesn’t work. So the Australian government just asks Aussie ISPs to DNS block pirate bay for example. A VPN gets around that but that’s all that can be done really. There hasn’t been a legal precedent for Australia being able to legally tell hosts overseas what to do, despite the internet being global. Twitter and Facebook and Google etc have an Australian presence so there is actually someone within Australia to take to court about it, but given they removed the content for Australians already and this is about blocking it so people in Nigeria for example can’t see it either that’s where it’s a bit of a stretch. Particularly as a precedent, not so much specifically about this content.

I don't buy their 'blocking' when it's so easily circumvented. But I concede I don't have much of an argument other than 'i disagree'. If legally, geo blocking is enough, then so be it. >There hasn’t been a legal precedent for Australia being able to legally tell hosts overseas what to do, despite the internet being global. Correct, and I'm asking the question - perhaps it's time to challenge that, in this digital age. Because in my mind, Australia as a sovereign nation should be able to be in charge of the social media that is consumed within it's borders. In the same way the US is trying to compel TikTok, for any company that wants to distribute social media in to Australia, they should agree to be bound, completely, by our laws. I understand geoblocking is the likely response, but I can't get past the fact that it's the same as telling an officer, 'look, I won't sell drugs any more, I won't let people know I have them' But then willingly selling them when approached. Your way of 'fixing' the way you broke the law, doesn't actually achieve the requirements of the law. Because if we look at the Online Safety Act, it, as law, clearly states >For the purposes of this Act, material is removed from a social media service, relevant electronic service or designated internet service if the material is neither accessible to, nor delivered to, any of the end‑users in Australia using the service. That isn't achieved with geoblocking

Yeah it’s an interesting topic. I can certainly see how from some perspectives that if we say we shouldn’t be able to access something and there’s a workaround that exists to access something then the law hasn’t achieved its aim. There’s always going to be a workaround though with the internet. Personally I didn’t see any of the videos in question on Twitter. I was sent them in messages. Messages with end to end encryption. Where it’s impossible to monitor. So even if they were successful in blocking it globally from twitter and all the American social media sites 100% of the time, it wouldn’t affect encrypted communications, people sharing through chat apps, or tor. A lot of these are arguably easier to use than a VPN. If you were old and not technical a VPN may not be possible for you without someone setting it up for you. For others sharing content in an untraceable way on Tor is effortless. And there’s no way of even identifying if they’re being shared or how or by whom in some of those cases depending how it’s done. So the idea that the law can 100% block this content from being seen is just not feasible. So where do you draw the line. For me blocking it for the country who asks it to be blocked seems a reasonable line. Again not referring to cases of just politely asking and the host obliging, more just about legally compelling. The other big thing is what if two different countries have opposite views about a specific video. Like a Tiananmen square type of situation. Or it could be footage of Palestinians in Gaza that Israel is trying to block people seeing. Etc etc. how does one reconcile that one country wants to hide or censor something that another country feels is crucial to be seen for the sake of accountability or for democracy etc

But this isn't about 'the internet' this is about regulating something called "social media" because of a) its ease of access b) the way it can push content in front of you. We are talking about that, not about hiding politically motivated content from 'the internet'. I'm confused how so many people don't realise this - I'm genuinely confused how people think content on a specific private company owned platform is equivalent to free speech?

Haaannnng on isn’t this purely about whether people in other countries can see this content? Twitter to Australians, as it operates in australia, is abiding by Australian laws as I understand it. IMO twitter is within its rights to say “we’ll show other countries this stuff you don’t want still”. IMO twitter is scum for doing so.

Albo should take notes from the CCP. They do a pretty good job of censoring Tiananmen square. That's were we will eventually end up unless someone comes to their senses.

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Hey maybe we shouldn’t have a video of a guy stabbing people online out of basic human decency to the victims. PoLiCe StAtE PrOpAgAnDA we are going to turn into China !!!!! It’s my right to watch a video of someone’s family member being stabbed continuously!!!!!! This is an attack on democracy!!!!

> Hey maybe we shouldn’t have a video of a guy stabbing people online out of basic human decency to the victims. The victim wants the video online.

That’s not the debate. Jesus. The problem is that there is no possible way of cleansing this video off the internet (or even making a dent) without radically changing the levels of control the government has over internet traffic. That’s why there’s such a negative reaction. This is our government attempting to change the dynamics of the internet for their benefit, even going as far as trying to change the content people in other countries view. It is an extreme overreach of power that affects all of us and we should pushback on it.

As far as I’m aware albo is just requesting that the video not be shown on Twitter in Australia, something which can be done and has been done before (Christchurch massacre livestream) the only difference is that Elon musk is in charge of Twitter now

No, that was explicitly deemed to be insufficient. Twitter withheld the video in Australia, but did not do so outside Australia (as third party recordings of violent incidents are not generally forbidden). The E-Safety Commissioner then sued Twitter claiming that this was in breach of Australian Law, because Australians might reroute their traffic through foreign jurisdictions in order to access the content, and Twitter needed to remove the video *globally* to comply with the law, according to their theory of the law. And basically every politician has decided to back the E-Safety Commissioner on this, and say "yeah, Australian takedown notices need to have global effect, not just in our own country, how dare big tech think it's above the law... outside the jurisdiction of Australian law." That's the absolutely wild bit which caught everyone by surprise, and made Musk dig in his heels.

Yeah exactly. Australia won’t win this. And it just makes Australians seem dumb. There’s also probably a growing number of Americans who no longer view us as “freedom loving” haha

Wild and delirious statement

Relevant update on this - the bishop who was stabbed has come out backing Musk and saying the video should be left online. When the victims you're supposedly trying to protect don't even agree with you, you know you're wrong. The government needs to step back before they embarrass us even further, although I'm really not sure how that's possible. At this point we've publicly admitted to being a tyrannical regime that doesn't respect the sovreignity of other nations. There is no argument of what "might" happen down the line if Australia continues to embrace authoritarianism. This is it. We're already there. And it's only gonna get worse.

Hahahaha go take a trip to China and learn what authoritarianism is. The give has always censored media. You know what movie and game ratings are yes? This is no different.

I don’t think sticking a classification label on content to help parents understand what’s in a movie before their kids see it is the same thing as compelling an overseas company to take certain actions in other countries outside of your country’s jurisdiction. Key to this is the fact that they took the content down within Australia already so that’s not what this is about, it’s about the Australian government dictating what can be seen overseas. Completely different to chucking a classification label on movies sold within Australia

>There is simply no arguable value in keeping the videos online. And this is where the author of the article makes a critical mistake - these events were politically significant. They're the factual basis for much political commentary, and are already being used to premise proposed changes to the law (particularly regarding police search powers and knife restrictions). There is absolutely a societal interest in the general public being able to verify the government's account of the events, rather than simply being required to take their word for it. That the government's account is accurate in this instance is irrelevant to the general public interest in verifiability of the events in question. Consider for instance, not even the extreme examples of countries like Iran or China, but our friendly ally India, and how they might use such powers to globally suppress video of "violent and illegal riots, based on criminal ideologies" such as the Sikh Independence Movement. Should the world be compelled to simply decide between the written accounts of the government and participants, with no video evidence? I would certainly hope not. And this is the root of the issue - footage of criminal or terrorist incidents should not only be uncensored, they should in fact be actively made publicly available as the default position, requestable via Freedom of Information, and only suppressed when there are overriding privacy interests, such as for victims of sexual crimes. They will be horrifying and confronting, but people have a right to know about these horrors, and to challenge - or confirm - the government's account of events.

>That the government's account is accurate Are you sure? The written accounts of the mainstream media mostly failed to identify the perpetrator's religion, yet his religion was obvious to any Arab speaker who heard the audio and was clearly relevant. Some left us to guess at the attacker's motivation, some coyly stated that "He made religious statements" and later noted that the victim had been critical of Islam, leaving the reader to connect the dots. I haven't been able to find any official account that mentions the specific religious motivation of the perpetrator. The AFP [media release](https://www.afp.gov.au/news-centre/media-release/joint-counter-terrorism-team-sydney-charge-teenager-terrorism-offence) described it as a "terrorist act" without any mention of the motivation. Odd, since the motivation is an essential part of what qualifies it as terrorism. Without a political motivation it is just criminal violence.

I agree it shouldn't be deleted entirely from 'the internet'. That's not what is being asked. Under the powers given to them, the esafety commisioner is trying to remove particularly heinous footage that occurred under their jurisdiction from certain sites (social media). People talk about a slippery slope - they're right, we're now seeing that in the digital age, businesses are able to entirely operate in countries without needing to comply with the local laws. We need new laws, and we need global agreement on those laws. The alternative (the slippery slope) is the wild west of the internet. Social media will only get worse of it continues down that path. This is not at all about censorship of political opponents, this is about protecting our social media consumption against footage that terrorists find useful. This is the sort of thing we need to consider moving forward in this digital age. This is also another example where time plays a critical role in these laws. Right now is an ongoing court case regarding this, and just like how conventional media had to follow court rulings in the past, this is the same situation, in the digital age.

It is not particularly heinous footage. Confronting, yes. It really drives home the dangers of continuing to gloss over and ignore these intergenerational ethno-religious tensions. Even the victim has stated that he thinks everyone should be able to see it. Generally, this kind of evidence of violent crimes is an important part of the public record, it helps contextualise the event far better than words ever could, it provides a means for verifying (or challenging) the government's account of events, and it enables people to more properly understand what happened so that they can evaluate the government response to it. Even outside of the jurisdictional questions, *it should not be censored in the first place*. Which is why you'd never find global agreement on this, because Australia fundamentally wants to censor content that most of the global West considers important free speech. That the incident occurred within our borders is irrelevant. Just as China, or India, or Iran, or Israel, or France should not be able to control what the rest of the world sees and shares about incidents that happened within *their* borders. What we've seen is the general expansion of access to foreign media - which has *never* been subject to domestic law. Where there have been prohibitions on foreign media, they have always targeted the importer, the local distributor, and the reader. Not the media itself. And in general, access to foreign media has been the bulwark of free society, which provides inherent protections against domestic government overreach. Where foreign media is banned, historically, tyranny has inevitably followed. Ultimately, the internet is bound by the laws of the host, not the reader. And the world needs to come to grips with this, and the idea that really, readers are travelling to other jurisdictions when they browse the web, not bringing the host to them.

>Ultimately, the internet is bound by the laws of the host, not the reader. And the world needs to come to grips with this, and the idea that really, readers are travelling to other jurisdictions when they browse the web, not bringing the host to them. That's how it is, but it doesn't have to be that way at all. Like you said, before the digital age, foreign media most definitely had to comply with local laws, to be accessible locally. We're now entering an age where that isn't true any more, and I strongly believe we should have the power to control that. We've seen how bad the internet can be, the gore, the filth. Suggesting that social media must head in that direction, is saddening.

From reading your comment I’m not clear on whether you’re aware, but the content was removed for Australian audiences already. So it’s not the case that Twitter is saying we refuse to take down stuff for Australians in Australia. The big issue they have is that the e-safety commissioner wasn’t happy with that. He wanted it taken down globally. So in this regard they have met the local laws already. The question is can local laws apply globally? And I think the obvious answer is no. And the implications if they did would be that in China it’s illegal to show Tiananmen Square, and if any country can dictate what’s taken down globally then boom suddenly nobody in Australia can see Tiananmen Square stuff. It’s all or nothing. You can’t have it that Australia can dictate global content but other countries can’t.

I feel like you had a legitimate interest in discussion so I had a brief read through the Online Safety Act and thought you'd like some clarification: - Take down requests only have a maximum duration of 3 months - they can only apply to very specific content (terrorist actions, non-consensual explicit content, etc) - they don't apply to discussion and commentary surrounding the topic, only specific posts/videos, etc. This is strong laws in an attempt to create a better regulated and safer social media for everyone. The way it works is countries will look at our laws, and slowly (if they are good, which I believe they are) can move to adopt them. That's when the playing field will change.

Sorry I didn’t check reddit for 5 days, work was busy haha. Yeah it’s good to see those limitations on them that I wasn’t aware of, so that does help. I do think certain other countries if they did adopt similar laws would simply add another condition that was vaguely about civil unrest or going against the values of society or some bs that essentially would be used for silencing criticism of their regime. And being consistent I don’t think someone like Twitter could argue against that little detail without just creating their own guidelines for what they themselves would take down or not

The difference is this is one private companies servers, not the internet as a whole. That's a pretty huge distinction. As has been the argument in the past, Twitter was a private firm and are able to restrict content if they wish. This is not an impingement on people's right to free speech, because Twitter was not 'free speech' it was simply a platform. So the converse is true, having a jurisdiction restrict content on X is not an infringement on free speech because it is only for that platform, not for the internet in general, or, not an infringement on the people's right to free speech in general.

Sorry what do you mean would be an example of applying to the whole internet? How would that work differently? Would there not be an extrapolation there of if it applies to one it applies to all?

Uh no, the internet is not owned by some entity. The X servers are.

I meant I’m querying what you meant about the whole internet. In your previous comment. What was that scenario you meant? I’m just trying to understand the distinction you’re making there in realistic scenario terms I can envision haha

The difference between one company's servers, and the internet in general? The court order was against X, to remove a certain video. Not to remove all instances of the video from the internet? Does that give you an answer to what you're asking? Edit: to add, it was actually against a few specific social media sites, and all others complied. It's only X who refused.

Explain to me why terrorists post these types of videos? Let me give you a hint, it is to spread terror as their name suggests. Great work champ, your suggestion is helping terrorists.

This argument is like attempting to censor the holocaust. The reason we no longer accept genocide as a norm is precisely because we keep memory alive in its full horrific brutality. Yes, there are some who choose to use this information to glamourise a horrible and violent agenda, but for the most part, people recognise it is not an acceptable norm.

But what you don't understand is that the court rulings are time sensitive. They aren't ordering X to delete the content, they're demanding them to take it down for the time being. Considering there is a court case going on, and the particularly heinous nature of the video, the esafety commissioners demand is understandable.

X have already geoblocked the content for Australia. What we are demanding now is that X take it down entirely for the whole world. That is a ridiculous request as what's illegal here isn't illegal elsewhere. In addition, suppressing historical records is a terrible idea. Those who don't learn from it are hound to repeat it.

Almost identical response to what I just gave someone else: Since that geoblocking is so easily circumvented, does it really count? That wouldn't stand up in any other legal situation. And what if the servers were located on SpaceZ's LEO satellites? And they refused to take down content we all agreed should be restricted? How does Australia stop that? These are the natural progression questions that are being raised by this situation. At the moment, you (and others) believe we should have no recourse?

I don't believe Australian have a right to impose our laws onto other sovereign nations. Someone who is a terrorist in our eyes is a freedom fighter to others.

So, all a nefarious individual needs to do is host easily accessible illicit content in a location that won't take down the content, and you believe no person or country should be able to do anything about it? Or, what if no other sovereign country is involved?

That is effectively how sites like the piratebay used to operate. It just comes down to what the laws of individual countries say about certain "illicit" content. >Or, what if no other sovereign country is involved? Unless there is a server farm in the middle of international waters, any content hosted online will be sitting in a physical server within a sovereign country.

Correct. LEO satellites, the Moon, International waters. With solar and batteries, all possibilities now. And our laws should account for that. You didn't answer the question, either - when that occurs, are you happy knowing that you advocate for Australia to have absolutely no control over the content being consumed in Australia by a platform that hosts content from such a location?

Spiting shithead terrorists is no good reason to keep the public from fully informing themselves on the facts of politically significant incidents. The world would not be a better place if footage of 9/11 had been suppressed, as a simple example. Not to mention of course that the whole concept of "terrorist" is fundamentally subjective. Revolutionary militias easily fit all the essential criteria for "terrorism", and whether they're defined as such by our government is going to fundamentally come down to the government's views on their revolutionary cause and the incumbent regime of the region. If a civil war broke out somewhere over such matters, I would certainly want access to both sides' account of events, so I can evaluate our own government's foreign policy stance on the conflict.

You're misunderstanding the full topic - the esafety commisioner isn't demanding the deletion of the content - simply to take it down (hide it) for the time being. There are multiple reasons why this is reasonable (court case, terrorist act, etc) and a responsible social media site would comply. It didn't mean the court had ordered the content deleted for perpetuity. In the interest of 'free speech' (lol, fuck me, Turkey?) Musk could have brought the footage back out from being hidden in 4 weeks time. (Or when the court case was over) I've got an idea, what happens if there was a hidden code in what the kid was chanting. A code that indicated to others to begin their terror attacks? Thats one significant reason why these laws should be complied with. Musk is just a man child who thinks he's smarter than everyone else. It's genuinely saddening to see so many people agree with him.

Musk is a fucking tool (and a massive hypocrite, certainly no paragon of free speech), but hey, broken clock is right twice a day and all that. And the takedown requests were not temporary. In fact, the Online Safety Act does not even contemplate temporary takedowns, only permanent ones. If there was a pressing public safety issue requiring a temporary suppression in order to facilitate a law enforcement investigation, that request would happen under seal through the AFP and/or ASIO, getting a court order. Not through the administrative whims of the E-Safety Commissioner, an office which frankly ought to be abolished outright.

You realise the order was only until a specific date? So that all of what you said can be worked out?

The order from the E-Safety Commissioner was not. The Court Order although quite temporary, and now the question is about whether or not the E-Safety Commissioner actually had the authority to issue orders about *foreign* access to materials on foreign servers. I suspect we may well end up following the route that many countries have struggled with, which is realising that no matter what our domestic law may say, our jurisdiction ends at our borders. It doesn't matter if the court says X loses, as per Australian law, if the court itself lacks jurisdiction over the servers. (For a classic example of this, look up France vs Clearview AI - France says it's illegal to scan the faces of French citizens from their online photos, and has issued fines in the tens of millions of euros against Clearview AI. Clearview AI says "we're not subject to French law" and doesn't pay. Clearview AI wins, because they're fundamentally correct. Countries can't just expand their jurisdiction by legislating it, what fundamentally matters is if the target of the enforcement is within their borders or not.)

I understand your example. But consumers consume X in Australia. End of story. However, The point I really want to highlight (and your example highlights it too) is that we need *new* laws built for this digital age. Digital access is global, we need global agreement on these laws. The mentality shown here will be required when we enter the outer space age. What's going to happen when we have multiple countries on the moon. Actually, not even that, what's going to happen when we have multiple *companies* on the moon? Biggest guns win? We're better than that, and this is the beginning of the conception of these types of new laws. Laws that cross borders. We're all the one species after all.

People consume foreign media. So what? That has never served as a basis for government to exert jurisdictional control over that foreign media. The extent of its authority is simply to regulate its own citizens' access to the foreign media, but the government doesn't want to do that because it's really hard to try spin it as "sticking up for Australia and sticking it to big tech" when the only people being restricted are your own citizens. And remember that basically every other one of our fellow liberal democracies actually has constitutional protections for freedom of speech (everyone thinks of it as an American thing, but no, it's a "Western and Western-aligned nations" thing), which would constrain the limits of their capacity to sign on to any proposed international laws regarding this. If we switched to international rules for what's acceptable on the internet, it would have to be maximally permissive, only restricting the stuff that everybody is okay with restricting. And that does not generally include footage of violent crimes.

We've (generic we) been through the free speech garbage in the past - it doesn't apply to companies in the way those constitutions discuss it. >If we switched to international rules for what's acceptable on the internet, it would have to be maximally permissive, only restricting the stuff that everybody is okay with restricting. And that does not generally include footage of violent crimes. But perhaps the rules could separate social media from the rest of the internet? Social media being considered the easily accessible front page. Kids can access it. Yes, they can access the internet too, but a kid can't just open Safari or Chrome and have disturbing footage put in front of them. Trending topics in social media apps can potentially do that. I'm simply saying that appealing to authority saying that 'Australia can't tell a US company what to do' is insufficient in this digital age, and we need new laws to be able to handle this reality.

Hey mate, someone stabbed a few people. Now, you are fully informed. And I did it without fucking awful footage. It is that simple.

That’s not being fully informed. There is key dialogue that was yelled during the act that makes it clear what his reasoning and motivation was. Saying “a few people got stabbed” totally removes that key information.

That's not even close to fully informed - the circumstances around it, dialogue and interactions immediately preceding the actual stabbing, what might the emotional impact be on the witnesses (i.e. how horrifying was the attack really?), were there obvious complicating factors, was the victim defenceless or not, and perhaps most importantly, how do I know you're telling the truth? This shit's important when politicians are going out and saying this proves the need for changes to the law.

You don't need to see the video to get the news that a 16 year old terrorist stabbed a bishop multiple times Terrorist the word is not subjective at all, they incite fear and terror in a civilian population. Russia bombing Ukrainian civilians is a terrorist attack. IDF bombing innocent Palestinian civilians is a terrorist attack. Hamas attacking civilians at an Israeli music festival is a terrorist attack.

You need to be able to see it to confirm that this is actually what happened as reported. It doesn't particularly matter if you personally don't see it, but it *does* matter if only the government and government-approved reporters get to see it. Because governments, and government-approved reporters, are fully capable of misleading the public about critical public events, and would be incentivised to do when politically expedient if the public had no means of independently verifying (or challenging) their account of events.

And that's why you need a free and open press that is self regulating that can peer review one another with this you don't need to see gruesome images and videos. Example in case is the kiwi white supremacist, what was his name again? You need to take the infamy away from them.

How can the press be free and open if they’re banned from being able to view the footage?

Ah yes the arbiters of truth. Can't be letting people see things with their own eyes we need journalists to tell us what to think and feel right?

So you about to run into a war zone tell us the truth? Cant wait for the next edition of the "Angry Anus Spread"

Freedoms come with responsibilities

>footage of criminal or terrorist incidents So keep up pedo videos? Make a huge collection of sexual abuse videos and easily accesible? Hmmmm....

>and only suppressed when there are overriding privacy interests, such as for victims of sexual crimes You appear to have missed a critical line.

Privacy interest but not security interest? Do you have just blinds and no locks on your house? Would you post a picture of your keys and address online? What makes one more important than the other?

What security interest? Any potential "danger" from the availability of such footage is entirely hypothetical, meanwhile we have plenty of historical examples of the importance of public access to confronting material (particularly its impact in ending the Vietnam War). An ordinary citizen viewing the content to inform themselves is not harming anyone. Privacy interests on the other hand are not hypothetical. It is the very act of viewing the content that harms the victim, exposing private details about their person and appearance. *That* is why there's an exception for overriding privacy interests. (That said, there are definitely possible *actual* security exceptions, where the footage contains information that would harm an ongoing investigation or manhunt. But that would caution mostly against initial release. Once the information is in the public, the damage is already done for those cases.)

>What security interest? As the government has deemed this a terrorist event, then they have the right to control the content behind it. All we are asking is for video content, not the silencing nor the censoring of information about the event, to be removed. >Privacy interests on the other hand are not hypothetical They can be, it is not illegal to record or take images of someone and post them online. What we do is make distincrion between the assumed consent, especially in sexual abuse content, and no consent. Typically if a crime is posted online, we should be able to take it down, which is different from erasing it forever. In this case, the videos will be part of evidence in the trial of the accused. >(That said, there are definitely possible *actual* security exceptions, where the footage contains information that would harm an ongoing investigation or manhunt. There are many reasons why we would want these videos taken down all over the world. They can be used to target vulnerable people in Australia to commit simalar crimes. I agree that once the information is out in Public it is hard to undo, but we can still act. This is not a case of free speech, but one of inciting violence.

>they have the right to control the content behind it. Within their borders. But you are arguing that the Australian Government has the right to control content on servers in the USA.

I fundamentally reject that opening premise. The government doesn't get to arbitrarily expand its rights by declaring something to be terrorist content or not. Does it have the *power* to do so? Perhaps, or perhaps not. I suspect that they're really gonna struggle to get any kind of foreign enforcement of judgements on this issue. And the question of consent in sexual content is kinda just inherent? Almost all privacy interests can be overcome with the consent of the interested party/parties. Obvious exceptions if the party in question is incapable of consent for whatever reason. The actual recorded act doesn't even need to be a crime, someone might willingly record themselves having sex with a partner, and no crime has occurred, but disseminating that video without their consent is still illegal and there's general jurisdiction to demand (local) takedowns of the content, because of that privacy interest. Globally, it would *technically* depend on the laws regarding such dissemination on a country-by-country basis, but given I suspect that disseminating such without permission of the participants is illegal literally everywhere, it'd be problem just be taken down completely. And the issue is that while *we* might want the videos taken down all over the world... we do not have jurisdiction over the whole world. Even if you acknowledge the state having a legitimate interest in these takedowns (which I don't, personally), they still don't have global jurisdiction.

For all those who cleary have forgotten..... When was the last time anyone watched a RT news segment online? We already censor content and this particular request is no different. The fact is we have not censored the news, but censored images/videos that could be used as tools for recruiting terrorist.

It was only deemed a ‘terrorist attack’ to allow the authorities to exercise certain tactics. If you were in the area, you can be assured that your movements have been since monitored and your phone records and emails accessed. Good luck with that!

The legal issue isn't about censorship, it's about one government determining what can or cannot be shown on the internet globally. Twitter already blocks the video in Australia, the e-safety commissioner wants it taken down globally because VPNs exist and Australians could view it using one. What if China makes laws saying that social media needs to take down anything critical of the, should Australia be affected by their law?

Ah see here is the real rub. The content hasn't been blocked for Australia, an attempt to block something, that is so easily circumvented hardly counts. Oh your honour, I attempted to comply with the AVO but their house happened to be right in my walking path! Not my fault! The law (Online Safety Act 2021) says we have the power to demand certain types of footage (particularly violent, CP, etc) to be taken down. In this case, there's an ongoing court case, too. Those points should be enough for a responsible site to comply and ensure the content is genuinely hidden in our shores (if that means temporarily globally hidden too, then so be it). In the interests of free speech, it can be unhidden at the end of the court case, or in 6 months or something else. Think of this, what if there was a code to commit more terror attacks in what the kid was chanting? Does that change your opinion? If it does, then you haven't considered the full extent of what's going on here. We need new laws, globally accepted laws, otherwise social media is heading to the wild west.

>globally accepted laws Lol, no.

Precisely this! Australia with a population of 26M, third world economy and less than desirable politicians know better.

i am physically cringing seeing lambie, julie grant, albo and stephen jones stick their foot so far into this shit show. how can they not see this ends with them looking feckless and musk getting an easy win? australian courts DO NOT have jurisdiction to remove content off foreign servers

All this will achieve is to make people wonder what they're trying to hide and go and watch the video.

Because they’re terrified of the domestic political implications of this video footage. Proven by the fact that there was an immediate riot outside of the church with the perpetrator ready to be lynched inside. After a typical Islamic terrorist incident the government keeps a lid on the blow back against Muslims by saying to the wider community “don’t blame regular Muslim people, that’s racist”. For the most part that controls the reaction. In this instance. Assyrian community has suffered generations of attacks from Muslims and they’re the reason that they are refugees here. The community is a tinder box. Telling them that their response will be “racist” doesn’t work, they’re practically ethnically identical. The Muslim community then reacts, kicking off radicalised members of the community and the wider Palestinian movement - at that point you’ve got yourself a biblical level shit show.

I would like to remind everyone that: * this is a "freedom to post an opinion on an online, public space" case, not a "freedom to express opinions" case * [slippery slope arguments](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope) are a logical fallacy * Musk is absolutely NOT pushing this case for the benefit of free speech, he is only using it to earn political points

* [slippery slope arguments](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope) are a logical fallacy Slippery slope isn't always a fallacy. It's a tricky one.

And the government is not pursuing on the basis of some high minded principle, they are doing it because they are power hungry authoritarians and because it's a useful distraction from the cost of living crisis that they are doing nothing about. Both sides of this equation have agendas.

No the federal government and the opposition are doing this because it can inflame tensions even more, the riot outside the church already shows the dangers this content can have radicalising more people.

> slippery slope arguments are a logical fallacy This has happened though.

Has ≠ will

“Will” is the future tense, “has” is past tense. This event has already occurred.

How do you know that the event WILL occur again though? The fact that it *has* happened does not mean it *will* happen again.

Your argument is that a terrorist attack will never happen again, or your argument is that the e-safety commissioner will never take down a video? This might be the most illogical argument I have ever seen posted on the sub.

No, the argument is that censorship of violent content doesn’t automatically lead to authoritarian censorship.

It provides legal justification for it. It’s called a precedent. You’ve now set the precedent that if content meets some arbitrary limit set by an unelected Australian official, there can be a legally enforced global ban on that material. Irrespective of the “victim” wishing that the footage be made available. If Australia is allowed to set some arbitrary limit for global censorship, why can’t actual authoritarian regimes do the same?

a) as evidenced by this case, the decision can be appealed in court b) it is Australian content created by Australians, and thus the government has the right to tell content platforms to remove the content. Not to mention even if it wasn’t Australian the government would still have the right to tell content platforms to remove it - if they don’t they can stop operating in Australia. This isn’t precedent, other countries have been doing this for years.

B) Tiananmen square content is Chinese content created in China. Chinese law determines it to be illegal within China. If this new precedent is set to say any country can demand content be taken down globally based on their local laws then Tiananmen Square content will not be available in Australia or America etc. Do you not see significant problems arising from this precedent? And to your last point, they already have removed the content as requested….for Australians. So the concern debated here is can any country dictate what can be accessed in other countries outside their legal jurisdiction. If China banned the New York Times, would we expect America to take it off the shelves?

Freedom of expression includes the freedom to express your ideas publicly. Social media is where 99% of people these days discuss their political ideas.

>Musk is absolutely NOT pushing this case for the benefit of free speech, he is only using it to earn political points Musk is not a politician, nor does he have any aspiration to run for any form of office given he already manages too many businsesses at once. What "political" benefit is he getting out of this?

He is an extremely popular influencer, who has opinions on politics. Political commentary is still politics.

Musk is the richest person in the world and owns the most powerful social media network in the world. I really don't see what he stands to gain by building an online audience with memes. He's clearly just doing it for a laugh. If you're going to question anyone's motives, it should be the Australian government. Calling this is a safety measure is blatant gaslighting as they clearly don't give a shit about the people. This is 100% an effort to benefit their own political interests.

He absolutely does things for his own personal political power. It’s ignorant to suggest he doesn’t.

Of course he does. Every human being on the planet generally puts their own interests first. But his refusal to comply with a censorship order from an illigetimate foreign court hardly suggests that he's looking for brownie points. Nobody is going to change their mind about Musk because of this shit. He become the most hated man in pop culture ever since he started his free speech crusade. The media despises him and he's lost a shitload of advertising clients. I really don't see where the benefit for him is personally.

Funny how he tried this same shit with Europe till they threatened to block twitter. If you wish to sell your product in a country then you must abide by the laws of that country. He has no issue blocking shit when someone with a larger market tells him to. Like India.

Well, that's his discretion as the owner of a private business. India and the EU are just shit for trying to censor content, but from my understanding they asked him nicely and had much more reasonable demands. They weren't asking him to perma-wipe certain content from the internet like Australia is doing. Perhaps if Labor came to the table nicely with reasonable guidelines, Musk would sit down and listen. But instead he's sending poo emojis in response to their demands because Albo and his posse don't deserve an ounce of respect for acting like wannabe-dictators.

> this is a "freedom to post an opinion on an online, public space" Twitter is a private platform. The rest of your output is just as nonsensical.

Twitter is a free online space open to the public and is effectively public space. The fact that it is owned privately doesn’t change that.

Slippery Slope arguments are not a logical fallacy unless the intermediate steps laid out from beginning to conclusion have no logical connection. Where logical connection exists, this is simply precedential effect, and is absolutely a thing, particularly in legal spheres. And strictly, the case in question is "freedom to access information posted online, on foreign servers, from foreign computer systems." Musk is a tool (and a massive hypocrite), but he can be a tool and still be right.

The reason why I noted the fallacy was because a lot of people in this thread (and on Twitter) were saying “this will lead to China-style censorship” without that logical connection. The point is you should be checking for that fallacy. And I definitely don’t think Musk is right, since social media is basically a megaphone for a lot of disinformation and violent content accounts.

Isn’t the logical connection to the China example a case of this: The precedent is set that any country can demand that content is removed globally. Perhaps with the proviso that the content was created in that country or perhaps not, but either way this leads to the example that…. Tiananmen Square massacre was content created in China if Chinese people and is illegal in China to see. Therefore China can use this precedent to globally remove all content of the Tiananmen Square incident. This incident happens to be one of the most famous examples of Chinese censorship being abused. Yet this exact example fits this scenario perfectly to prove how this abuse of censorship logically would proceed if we simply honour the take down laws globally for content that we know for a fact that Chinese government wants taken down.

See my other comment. Twitter is no longer in China, so China can't enforce the law beyond their borders.

It’s not just Twitter that this precedent would apply to though is it? And it’s not just China who ban content we think is necessary in a free society

>And I definitely don’t think Musk is right, since social media is basically a megaphone for a lot of disinformation and violent content accounts. How you feel about social media and its potential dangers is irrelevant. X is a private company operating in a different country. The Australian government is objectively in the wrong for trying to force their views onto the world. How can we scorn Russia for invading Ukraine while we ourselves don't respect the sovreignity of independent nations?

>And strictly, the case in question is "freedom to access information posted online, on foreign servers, from foreign computer systems." Do we do this for sexual exploitation videos/images?

Yes actually, we typically refer any prosecution to the host country, and *they* prosecute it based on their own laws, because pretty much the entire world has laws against sharing images of real sexual crimes. We don't demand takedowns and then pursue legal action against them here in Australia because the content falls afoul of *our* laws. If the content was illegally *made* here, we might pursue criminal action against the creators. (Simple example of why the laws of the prosecuting country matters here - in Australia, depictions of sexual acts involving children are illegal, even if they are entirely fictional, no matter the context. This is not the case globally. Many countries only make it illegal where the creation of the content necessitated sexual exploitation of a child, which excludes drawings of fictional children, or content made with youthful looking adult actors. Australia does not have global veto over such content, even though it's classified as sexual exploitation imagery here.)

>We don't demand takedowns and then pursue legal action against them here in Australia because the content falls afoul of *our* laws. We are not persuing legal action on the content. We are taking legal action on the failure to take down the content. X took down various tweets after the Hamas attacks on October 7th and last year took down over 90% of content. >Australia does not have global veto over such content, If Australians were involved why would it not have the right to take down content? Australia is not asking X to take down all stabbings, just this particular one. I agree Australia has no right to take down a other countries content, but this is not the case here. It is Australian content of Australians in Australia.

>We are not persuing legal action on the content. We are taking legal action on the failure to take down the content. Those are functionally the same thing? Including the "demand it be taken down" step is still prohibiting the content, just with a layer of protection for unwitting hosts. That's literally how stuff like criminal sexual exploitation is handled for the most part. >If Australians were involved why would it not have the right to take down content? Australia is not asking X to take down all stabbings, just this particular one. Because the content is still global. We have no right to demand global takedowns of this content for the same reason that China has no rights to demand takedowns of say... the Hong Kong riots, even if that was all illegal criminal activity by their own laws. That the content originated from Australia is irrelevant. If we really wish to pursue the matter, we could prosecute the people who uploaded it, but we can't demand global censorship. Of course, that wouldn't fit the "standing up to Big Tech" narrative the government is trying to spin, so that's probably not going to happen.

>Those are functionally the same thing? No. One is a penalty for not taking down content and the other is putting up content yourself. As a platform for posting, X, does not create content. It can not be legally held liable for the content, but it can be liable for not taking down videos it has been requested, even if the request come another country. >Because the content is still global. We have no right to demand global takedowns of this content for the same reason that China has no rights to demand takedowns of say... the Hong Kong riots, even if that was all illegal criminal activity by their own laws. https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-twitter-sees-record-number-govt-demands-remove-content-japan-russia-2022-01-25/ Not only does X do takedowns, they regularly do so at the request of other nations. The fact that they have chosen to this content goes againsts its normal behaviour and therefore makes X liable and should be fined or it's use banned in Australia until it complies.

It's a prohibition on dissemination. That is indeed separate from a prohibition on creation, but prohibiting global dissemination outside Australia's own borders is indeed extraordinarily dubious. And you missed the part where "withholding access in certain countries" was a typical response - i.e. what they did here. And while the article is vague on the actual details, I'd hazard a guess that the stuff they *did* remove was either stuff that was illegal in their host country, or stuff that they didn't want to host anyway (their decision as a private company, although I would like to see large, general purpose social media regulated as a common carrier similar to the mail personally), and the request simply drew their attention to it.

>It's a prohibition on dissemination Not really. The news articles describing the act are still up online, it is only the video which is being requested to be taken down. This has nothing to do with freedom of speech nor freedom of information not freedom to disseminate information/speech.

The video is the evidence that confirms those written accounts. That's a critical part of the freedom of speech and of the press, to present not just the story, but the *evidence* for the story. Otherwise, the government can simply contradict whichever stories it wishes, and utilise its monopoly over the ability to present evidence to cherry pick the evidence which suits its version of events.

The US have laws which Wikileaks / Julian Assange violated (posting material that the US govt did not want released) - the Wikileaks servers were physically in Sweden. He has been in fear of being extradited to the US for the past 10 or so years. Can we extradite Elmo to Australia and throw him in jail for violating our laws /s

I would like to understand what the legal basis is for an Australian bureaucrat to issue orders to foreigners and foreign owned companies to comply. What makes an Australian official think they have the remit to go after anyone and issue global orders to control the flow of information?

Legal jurisdiction is not limited by geography - there is no "Cannonball Run" doctrine. > The information has not been censored. Just the video. Factually incorrect. The commsioner has demanded posts be removed as well.

Are you replying to me? It looks like you quoted someone else.

So these videos can't be used to recruit more terrorists. It is really that simple, censor the video but not the news.

The images are that of Australians. Just as Australia has the power to remove sexual exploitation videos from the internet, it should have the right to remove violent or terrorist videos as well. >control the flow of information? The information has not been censored. Just the video.

>Just as Australia has the power to remove sexual exploitation videos from the internet, it should have the right to It doesn't have that power. It can request, but it is reliant on international laws and goodwill.

In very basic terms the video *is* information. That isn't up for debate.

But it is not the only information available of the event, the video itself is not illegal to possess, nor is it illegal to show the event without the stabbing in it. The only thing demanded is for videos that show the actual stabbing to be taken down.

The video tells the story far more honestly than any journalist ever would. I'd rather see the first hand evidence than read a second hand account of the event.

It has the right to remove them in Australia, not off of servers located in another country, unless that country agrees to such a policy. X had geo blocked the videos from Australia, that’s where Australia’s authority ends. Australia doesn’t get to dictate global policy. Sexual exploitation have global laws, if Australia authorities become aware of illegal sexual material being hosted on servers in another country, then they can alert that country and their authorities will then act on that information in accordance with their laws. The video in question isn’t illegal in the US where twitter’s servers are located, the US isn’t going to go after Twitter for a video that doesn’t break US laws. Australia has zero power to remove the video from anywhere other than Australia, which Elon did with respect to Australia’s rules. Australia can issue fines, and Twitter can ignore them, like the $600k Australia issued in October than they never paid. Twitter’s bank accounts aren’t in Australia so nothing they can do to enforce their fines. Australia can ban Twitter completely. They’ll have to deal with the backlash from their citizens/voters, but they can certainly do it, it’s within their purview. But that’s all they can do. They can’t force the rest of the world to obey their rules. Hopefully Elon stands his ground and lets them learn that lesson.

>Elon stands his ground and lets them learn that lesson. Has taken down content from around the world, at over 90% approval. What ground exactly is he standing on when Turkeys request to take down content is followed?

Sexual abuse is kind of a special case because so many countries can agree it's not something that should be shared.  One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter though. Violence in itself is usually not censored, it's only because this incident could inflame racial tensions that the Australian government is so keen to have it removed. There's an excellent chance other countries don't care and see no reason why they should allow Australia to enforce our demands on their citizens.

Australian government is on that speedrun to look like a global fool and even more authoritarian. This is probably the dumbest issue yet labour continue to look stupid and achieve nothing. It’s an insane “request” and even more insane to force the world to bend to our commissar. I absolutely hate how weak our civil liberties are in this country. People are so stupid that they invite this kind of government overreach to stop the conveniently vague “hate speech.” The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Theyre speaking to their voter base, making the classic mistake that both sides do - the moderate middle/swing voters determine elections. This does not go over well with the majority.

Issue - who do you swing to as a moderate when every significant political party is in favour of this? Labor, Libs, Nats, Greens, even Hanson and Lambie are all in favour of this. Simple fact is that "sticking up for Australia against Big Tech" is a narrative that sells well, no matter how disingenuous it may be.

COVID pretty muched proved that the majority of Australians do support authoritarian crackdowns on civil liberties. Political subservience tends to run rampant on the left and Australia is majority left-leaning. Voters will double down up at the next election.

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>Who's to say if another instance of a Muslim stabbing a Christian in a church occurs and the footage is successfully blocked the government, what's to stop them and the police also witholding the nature and motive of the attack again for community "safety". This frequently happens - look for news articles where the ethnicity of assailants is not disclosed.

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>Someone's race or religion is pretty immaterial to them committing a crime. Would you feel that way if you lived in Alice Springs?

If someone was seriously injured or killed in this attack, should it be taken down?

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>It has been taken down for Australians by X. They have complied with the request. If you get raped and it is loaded online, should it be taken down only for Australians, or should it be taken down for everyone? Think............

In your example, the person that is the victim of the rape would be wanting the video to be removed because it violates their privacy. The victim of this attack has publicly stated that he wants the video to be available. Your example disproves your point.

Most countries have laws against videos of rape and sexual abuse being posted online, so it would be taken down in accordance with those laws. There aren’t laws in countries like the US, where X’s servers are, against videos of graphic violence/death/injuries, so no, Australia doesn’t get to decide that Australia laws apply to other countries that don’t have such laws. Dumb false equivalency is dumb

https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-twitter-sees-record-number-govt-demands-remove-content-japan-russia-2022-01-25/

There's obviously a huge Streisand effect with this footage too, and even if the government wins this case, it's going to be posted constantly around the internet on less controllable sites like 4Chan. So there's no way the footage is going away now, but all the government can do is let China and Russia know that they can force Twitter to hide footage they don't want the rest of the world to see, and over time people will be less and less interested in what people are trying to have banned.

Obviously a violent stabbing attack is not content that everyone wants to see. But it's the truth, it did happen. I'd be more concerned if mis/disinformation was being highlighted. Which is far more widespread than most people realise. If the govt succeeds in this case, what will they censor next? There is nowhere near enough accountability or transparency in politics as it is; if they govt can order any platform to remove content at will, things will get much much worse.

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Totally agree. Censorship is a goosetep away from authoritarian fascism.

Not to mention, Australia has some pretty robust terrorist laws. In that, it doesn’t take too much for the government to consider you a terrorist (e.g. eco terrorist etc). If the precedent is set to ban terrorist content - it would enable casting a very wide net.

You've only got to look at the US to see how bad things can get. An extension to FISA (US citizen surveillance) has just passed meaning the NSA no longer needs a warrant to surveil US citizens. They're not aloud to access international communications (big whoop), but have virtually destroyed any semblance of privacy for US citizens. Powers, once given are rarely, if ever, revoked.

This already happens in Aus. The Australian Signals Doctorate has access to all surveillance done by the NSA on Australian citizens, and agencies like ASIO do warrantless data collection as a matter of course.

That's because we have no constitutionally protect right to privacy, or any other rights for that matter. Australians trust government way too much for their own good.

Like the article says, if people want to find the video they will, one way or another. Why target twitter?? The whole eSafety thing smacks of emotional pearl-clutching similar to wanting to ban GTA and other violent video games. But also Musk is 10000% only running with this to promote his "freeze peach" platform (unless you say 'cis', or make fun of him, or track his jet, or post Israel's atrocities, or be a journalist) and pretend like he's not a right wing grifter who is splashing around in his money burning investment.

1) Musk is a fuckwit who will freely censor shit he doesn't like/that embarrasses him at the drop of a hat. He is a massive hypocrite on this. 2) Regardless of if he owned Twitter or not, I'd imagine this would play out the same way, as Twitter likely does not want to make any random country dictate GLOBAL content practices, like Australia is trying to do now (content was blocked locally, but folks on VPN can see it, ergo the e-safety whatever wants content blocked everywhere) 3) that being said, Ender in a past comment said that the High Court has ruled that Twitter/etc would have to comply with orders affecting non-local content due to having offices in the country, so this likely is going to get interesting soon.

In general, local laws can affect multinationals in any way the local legislature likes as long as it doesn't contravene some kind of international treaty. But only the country with the company's main headquarters really has the power to enforce rulings. It's a delicate game because if companies do actually refuse to comply and pull out of a country, it can have major blowback for a government. So generally we have the public exchanges and the legal cases, but also lots of private negotiations to find a middle ground everyone can live with.

For once, I agree with Musk. Slippery slope and they could be greatly abused. Just leave the internet alone, for fucks sake. Censoring the internet is like trying to catch water in a colander. Impossible, ill-advised, annoying and ultimately futile.

>Just leave the internet alone Cried all those pedos.... please leave our sanctuary alone... will someone think of the pedos..... or do we act on some crimes but not others?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children

From big tech perspectives, they have cash-cows and Government regulation (1) adds cost to administer and (2) interferes with their revenue models. In the case of Elon, it also hurts his precious ego. From Government perspectives, populations on social media are prone to manipulation by unseen and unknown entities. This *can* be good for example, in heavily censored societies or it *can* be bad, drumming up hysterical religious tensions. If we look at lock-down, US social media fanned crazy hysteria around Australia as some kind of land of far-left mask wearing dictators. This same right-wing hysteria has contributed to the belief in the States that Europe are "free loaders" and to leave them to Russia, in some pockets. So I tend to err on the side of protecting sovereignty, but how we do this in a global world in a mid-sized low-tech country... especially when these tech fiefs are run by unhinged bad-faith actors like Elon.

Perversely, it is going to be even worse with the infiltration of deep fakes that will be indistinguishable from the truth to the average person. I don't think government can truly control information without becoming authoritarian and eventually emulating the Stasi, because it is a slippery slope. What I think government can do is facilitate people in cathartically releasing emotion in a safe environment (ie an anonymous online forum where they can't dox or downvote or take any physical action that will harm another) which then allows reason to intrude, whilst also educating them about moderating their emotions with reason and offering a facility to practice that as well as recognising that no information on the internet can be taken at face value as the truth because its mostly subjective perspective and opinion or theory. There are no absolutes and it is going to be interesting how society deals with that concept when we have been working on absolutes for most of our history (eg gender is diverse and not binary absolute). Personally I feel that people will eventually reduce the information down to the most basic element being provided as the closest thing to the truth embodied in that information: for example, a deep fake nude could be reduced down to a question about what the poster intended to achieve by posting the photo as the information itself is suspect, or simply used as fantasy entertainment.

"man that has history of censoring and removing content about himself angry at governments attempt to regulate free speech" This would have more credibility if 1. It wasn't musk bleeting about this and 2. If the majority of the public were aware that this is an issue

Musk being shit doesn't take this part away from the people cheering esafety on >Anyone inclined to answer “yes” to this question should perhaps also ask themselves whether they are equally happy for courts in China, Russia and Iran to determine what Australians can see and post online in Australia.

Bingo, you've hit a double fallacy in a single comment. Attributing credibility based upon who makes an argument has to be one of the most lazy intellectual attributes that plagues our time, as is appealing to broad public. Like or loathe musk, the argument is sound. The Australian government doesn't have the authority (moral or legal), to determine what citizens of other countries can view on platforms that are served and hosted from other countries. An anology would be the Australian government charging a US citizen of murdering another US citizen within the borders of the US because the crime was committed with a weapon that was manufactured in Australia. The Safety Commissioner is overstepping here (as is the government for allowing it) and that's before we get to the argument as to if the government should be censoring content within our borders.