Who could have missed Elon Musk’s challenge to the Australian E-Safety Commissioner’s demand that X (formerly Twitter) hide all posts linking to depictions of the horrific knife attack on a prominent Orthodox Christian leader in Sydney last week or face huge fines? X says it has complied but intends to legally challenge the order on free speech grounds. In fact, X has geo-blocked the posts such that they can’t be accessed within Australia. But they can elsewhere. Derek takes a look at the complicated legal issues that follow a week of political position taking and platform pushback.
Ayesha is looking at differences in the way news media covered the attack on Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel at Wakeley Park in far western Sydney and the way it covered the Bondi Junction shopping mall stabbings in the city’s eastern suburbs, the same week, in which six people died. The former attack was labelled an act of terrorism. The latter, the work of a mentally ill attacker. One led to greater police powers over a marginalised community. The other, a promised review of mental health services.
And I’m taking a look at how the Federal Court’s Justice Michael Lee, of Lehrmann vs Ten and Wilkinson fame assessed journalistic reasonableness. Both Ten and Lisa Wilkinson have hailed the judgment in their favour in the defamation trial as a victory. But the Judge was critical of the way Ten arrived at the truth.
For those of you taking a long weekend, enjoy.
Monica Attard, CMT Co-Director