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From LifeSiteNews

By David James

The video is available on YouTube but Australia’s political class is singling out and waging war on X owner Elon Musk for his refusal to delete footage of the stabbing of Orthodox Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel.

In a demonstration of governmental overreach the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has attacked Elon Musk, the owner of X (formerly Twitter) for not acceding to demands to put a worldwide ban on video footage of an attempted stabbing of a bishop in a Sydney church.

Albanese is not alone; virtually the entire Australian political class has joined in the attack. Tanya Plibersek, minister for Environment and Water called Musk an “egotistical billionaire.” Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young described him as a “narcissistic cowboy.” Albanese chimed in by describing him as an “arrogant billionaire who thinks he’s above the law.”

Senator Jacqui Lambie went as far as suggesting that Musk be “jailed” for his refusal to bend to the demands of the Australian government.  

In response to Lambie’s comments, Musk declared her to be an “enemy of the people of Australia,” agreeing with another social media user who suggested it should be Lambie, not Musk, who belongs in jail.

The right wing Liberal-National coalition was only slightly less aggressive saying Musk was offering an “insulting and offensive argument” in his refusal to remove graphic footage of the stabbing. How Musk saying that posts should not be taken down is “insulting and offensive” was not explained.

The victim of the attack, Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, an Iraqi-born Assyrian Australian prelate who is head of the Eastern Christ the Good Shepherd Church, has displayed a maturity and moral virtue conspicuously lacking in the political arena. Emmanuel recorded a message saying that he loved his assailant, and that he wanted the video to stay online, urging people not to respond to violence with violence.

After the incident there were riots outside the church, resulting in 51 officers sustaining injuries. A 16-year-old boy has been arrested and charged with a religiously motivated terrorist attack.

The court battle between the Australian government and Musk is being characterised as a contest between free speech and the government’s role in protecting people. Certainly for Musk it is very much about protecting free speech.

That formulation is inaccurate. There is no effective protection of free speech in Australia, unlike the US, which has the First Amendment of the Constitution. The Federal government is currently preparing a misinformation and disinformation bill to force social media companies only to allow content of which the government approves.

As Senator Ralph Babet of the United Australia Party observes it is a “censorship agenda” that will be pushed no matter which party is in power. “The office of the eSafety commissioner was created under the Liberal Party and is now being emboldened by the Labor Party,” he writes.

The public battle with Musk is better seen as an attempt by the Australian government to control what is on the internet. The newly appointed eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman-Grant directed X to remove the posts, but X had only blocked them from access in Australia pending a legal challenge. The government then demanded that the posts be removed world-wide.

That the Australian political class thinks it has the right to issue edicts in countries where it has no legal jurisdiction is a demonstration of the lack of clarity in their thinking, and the intensity of their obsession with censoring.

Musk accurately characterised the situation in a post: “Should the eSafety Commissar (an unelected official) in Australia have authority over all countries on Earth?” It seems that many Australian politicians think the answer to that question is “Yes.”

The childish personal attacks on Musk, typical ad hominem attacks (going at the person rather than the argument) are revealing. What does the fact that Musk is a billionaire have to do with the legal status of the posts? Does having a lot of money somehow disqualify him from having a position?

If he is “egotistical” or “arrogant” what does that have to do with his logical or legal claims? How does exposing Musk as a narcissistic cowboy” have any relevance to him allowing content on the platform? Wouldn’t a narcissist be more likely to restrict content? The suspicion is that the politicians are resorting to such abuse because they have no argument.

The Australian government’s attack on Musk, which borders on the absurd, is just one of many being directed at X. An especially dangerous initiative is coming from the European Union’s Digital Services Act, which can apply fines of up to 6 per cent of the worldwide annual turnover, a ridiculously punitive amount. The United Kingdom’s communications regulator, Ofcom is even worse. It will have powers to fine companies up to 10 per cent of their global turnover.

Western governments are mounting an all out push to censor the internet, and Australia’s aggressive move is just part of that. What is never considered by governments and bureaucrats is the cost of such censorship.

The benefits of “protecting” people are always overstated and inevitably infantilize the population. The price is a degradation of social institutions and a legal system that does not apply equally to the citizenry and to the government. It is a step towards tyranny: rule by law rather than rule of law.