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.
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?”
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