Elon Musk’s battle over the Sydney church stabbing video is not about freedom of speech. It’s to titillate his followers | Belinda Barnet

Elon Musk’s battle over the Sydney church stabbing video is not about freedom of speech. It’s to titillate his followers | Belinda Barnet

The X owner was always going to turn the video removal request into a glib culture war fought with 4chan-style memes and late-night missives

Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

This battle was never about the removal of a single violent video for Elon Musk – it was always going to turn into a glib culture war fought with 4chan-style memes and late-night missives featuring Musk as the free speech antihero fighting Woke Governments of the World. At least, that is how he wishes to portray it to his more than 180 million followers.

Musk on Tuesday responded to an interim court order from Australia’s eSafety Commission requesting that X hide graphic and distressing videos of the recent Sydney stabbing within 24 hours with a Wizard of Oz meme: it’s all shits and giggles over at X. In further posts, he took aim at the eSafety commissioner, claiming she wants “authority over all countries on Earth”, after labelling her a “Commissar” for requesting the removal of the video in the first place, which depicted an attack that the NSW police have since classified as a terrorist incident.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *