By Karl Hoerr -
Australia’s sSafety Commissioner Julie Inman-Grant has announced she will drop Federal Court proceedings against X Corp over a video showing the stabbing of a Bishop during a church service in Sydney’s south-west in April.
The attack on Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel happened during a service at the Christ the Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley, which was being live streamed.
The incident triggered a riot outside the church and the alleged attacker, a 16-year-old boy, was charged with committing a terrorist act.
Inman-Grant launched action in the Federal Court, aimed at blocking video of the stabbing on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
But today she announced her action would be consolidated in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and the Federal Court proceedings would be discontinued.
“We now welcome the opportunity for a thorough and independent merits review of my decision to issue a removal notice to X Corp by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal,” said Inman-Grant in a statement.
“Our sole goal and focus in issuing our removal notice was to prevent this extremely violent footage from going viral, potentially inciting further violence and inflicting more harm on the Australian community.
“I stand by my investigators and the decisions eSafety made,” she said.
X responded to the decision on its own platform, saying “We welcome the news that the eSafety Commissioner is no longer pursuing legal action against X seeking the global removal of content that does not violate X’s rules.
“This case has raised important questions on how legal powers can be used to threaten global censorship of speech, and we are heartened to see that freedom of speech has prevailed,” said X.
But Inman-Grant said it was reasonable to expect the company to remove the content.
“Most Australians accept this kind of graphic material should not be on broadcast television, which begs an obvious question of why it should be allowed to be distributed freely and accessible online 24/7 to anyone, including children,” she said.
