Elon Musk’s social media platform X is suing the Australian government, after an ‘offensive' post was ordered to be removed from the platform by the country’s ‘E-safety commissioner’.
X faced an $800,000 fine if it refused to remove a post authored by a Canadian named Chris Elston. In the post, Elston ‘misgendered’ and made ‘disparaging' remarks about Australian citizen Teddy Cook.
Cook, who was appointed to a World Health Organization expert panel, is a female-to-male trans man who has advocated for taxpayer-funded surgeries for all transgender Australian citizens.
X abided by the request of the government-run Commissioner and geo-blocked the post in Australia. Mr. Elston, however, simply re-shared the offending post. Things notably backfired when it resulted in the specific post being reshared in a different format and has now been viewed almost a million times.
X has since announced it will legally challenge the Commissioner to ‘protect its users' right to free speech'.
The eSafety Commissioner, funded by taxpayers, later acknowledged that it can only remove or block posts if the offended party makes the complaints.
Cook is believed to have lodged the complaint with the e-Safety Commissioner himself.
A spokesperson for the Commissioner explained that eSafety's Adult Cyber Abuse Scheme is a complaints-based scheme, meaning that when a newer version of the post appears after compliance with a previous removal notice, a new complaint from the targeted resident is then required in order to take regulatory action.
Political figures condemned the alleged waste of Aussie taxpayer's money.
