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Elon Musk’s social media platform refused to delete a video that Oxel Rudakubana watched a few minutes before murder three young children, despite numerous requests from the authorities in Australia and the United Kingdom.
The Australian Internet regulator said on Friday that he noted with “great sadness” that the video – which shows the violent stab of a bishop in Sydney in April – was watched by the killer on X If the regulator had requested that the equipment be removed from the platform for months before Southport attack last summer.
Immediately after the Australian attack, companies such as Google, Microsoft, Snap and Tiktok “acted quickly to cooperate with Esafty and make sure that the Wakeley stab video could not be accessible from their platforms . Some of these companies have taken additional and proactive measures to reduce the additional equipment distribution, “said the regulator. “X Corp has chosen not to remove the video from its platform.”
Video sequences of the stab wounds of a bishop in a church of West Sydney circulated online in April but X only geoblooked the images in AustraliaThis means that people elsewhere in the world and local VPN users could continue to see the violent attack.
British interior secretary Yvette Cooper said this week that the government was contacting X directly to ask him to remove the video from the platform. “Companies should not take advantage of the content accommodation that puts children’s lives in danger,” she told the House of Commons.
Rudakubana, 18, was sentenced to life with a minimum of 52 years in prison Thursday after admitting the murder of three young girls in a dance class on the theme of Taylor Swift in Southport.
Musk tweeted several times following the murders, accusing British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of “prioritizing mosques on British girls in their dance lessons”. Musk also amplified the tweets by the far right agitator Tommy Robinson who claimed that “Muslims run in the undisputed streets by the police, attacking any non-Muslim”. Interventions led to accusations that he ignited tensions that led to riots in British cities and cities last summer.
Friday, Musk shared an article on the murders of Southport, saying “never forget”.
But so far he has refused to intervene to force his business to eliminate the video that Rudakubana has watched, and the video still circulates on X Friday afternoon.
The Financial Times contacted X to ask him why he had not deleted the video, but received no response.
The Rudakubana affair court learned this week that a search of a Lenovo tablet found in his house showed that he had deleted all his browser history outside of research on the day of the attack. Six minutes before leaving to lead the murders, he had searched X for “Mar husband Emmanuel dagger”.
When the police carried out the same search of X during their investigation, they found that this had led to posts containing images of the Sydney attack three months earlier.
The accusation also described the online profiles and the handles of Rudakubana’s social media in court, including its X account. Friday, its X account – which is protected, so that only followers can see its messages – n ‘ had not been removed.
The Australian regulator sought to bring legal action to try to force X to comply with a decision to fully withdraw the video in April, a decision that divided the country that the government suppresses freedom of expression or was right to protect social media users from harmful and violent content.
Musk criticized the decision, accusing the “commissioner” safe to try to censor the Internet.
This caused a furious reaction from the country’s politicians, notably Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister, who said he was “painful” that X fights the order to withdraw the video and criticized the billionaire’s position.
However, a The court opted against the extension of an injunction On the video displayed on the basis of “reasonable measures” to stop the video displayed in Australia. The case had been considered a potential trial case to find out if local regulations could be applied on a global basis.
The security commissioner abandoned his file in June pending an examination of Australia’s online security laws.
Additional reports by Hannah Murphy