Elon Musk‘s X is suing the Australian government after its ‘world-first’ E-Safety Commissioner ordered an ‘offensive’ post to be removed from the platform.
Daily Mail Australia last week revealed that X faced an $800,000 fine if it did not remove a post written by Canadian man Chris Elston, in which he misgendered and made ‘disparaging’ remarks about an Australian citizen, Teddy Cook.
Cook, 45, a female-to-male trans man who has advocated for taxpayer-funded surgeries for all transgender Australians, was controversially appointed to a World Health Organisation expert panel.
Mr Elston’s alleged offence came when he shared a Daily Mail story in late February about Mr Cook.
Cook’s now-private social media posts are awash with X-rated material, including public nudity, bondage parties, trans orgies and even a photo of a man apparently having sex with a dog.
It is understood Cook lodged the complaint with the e-Safety Commissioner himself.
In a colossal back-fire for the e-Safety Commissioner, that post alone has been seen over 140,000 times and a concerted campaign to re-share it by others has racked up over a million views.
The eSafety Commissioner lauds itself as the ‘first government agency committed to keeping its citizens safer online’.
It is run by former Twitter Director of Public Policy, Australia & SE Asia, Julie Inman-Grant, who receives an annual salary of almost $445,000.
Ms Grant, an American who began her career working in the US Congress, worked at Microsoft for 17 years, eventually rising to the role of Global Director for Safety and Privacy Policy and Outreach before she joined Twitter.