{"id":207,"date":"2025-07-17T10:07:03","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T10:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/207\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T10:07:03","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T10:07:03","slug":"xs-grok-referred-to-itself-as-mecha-hitler-and-now-theyre-back-in-court-with-the-esafety-commissioner-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/207\/","title":{"rendered":"X\u2019s Grok referred to itself as \u2018Mecha-Hitler\u2019 and now they\u2019re back in court with the eSafety Commissioner. Why?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why are X and the eSafety Commissioner back in court?<\/p>\n

X and Australia\u2019s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant have enjoyed several legal tussles over the past five years<\/a>. The eSafety Commissioner acts as Australia\u2019s independent online watchdog, and using her powers under the Online Safety Act can issue removal notices to platforms, as well as fines and infringement notices. X has regularly fought against these notices.<\/p>\n

\"eSafety<\/p>\n

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant was a boss of X in Australia back when it was called Twitter.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen<\/p>\n

Earlier this month the Administrative Review Tribunal struck out an order by Inman-Grant that demanded X remove a post that insulted a transgender Australian man, in a move the platform\u2019s lawyers called \u201ca win for free speech in Australia\u201d.<\/p>\n

In this latest case, X is using the Administrative Review Tribunal to challenge a notice from the eSafety Commissioner issued in March 2024 to X, along with online platforms Meta, Google, Telegram and Reddit, requiring them to report on steps they\u2019re taking to remove terrorist and violent extremist material from their platforms. The hearing, being held in Brisbane, is ongoing.<\/p>\n

The issue stems from the March 2019 attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand<\/a>, in which 51 people were killed at two mosques. The attacker live-streamed the attack on Facebook and the footage quickly spread online, including to X.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the eSafety Commissioner saying?<\/p>\n

Julie Inman Grant, who was formerly the boss of X in Australia back when it was called Twitter, says online platforms should be doing more to detect and remove extremist content, particularly with the advent of AI. She says it\u2019s too easy for the platforms to be used to radicalise and recruit potential terrorists, and that X and other platforms specifically didn\u2019t do enough to stop the Christchurch footage from spreading.<\/p>\n

\u201cEver since the 2019 Christchurch attack, we have been particularly concerned about the role of livestreaming, recommender systems and of course now AI, in producing, promoting and spreading this harmful content and activity,\u201d Inman Grant said in March.<\/p>\n

What has Elon Musk\/X said?<\/p>\n

X has said the eSafety Commissioner has exceeded the powers of the Online Safety Act, and that the removal notices are too broad. Elon Musk has labelled the commissioner a \u201ccensorship commissar\u201d<\/a> and called one of her previous orders, to take down graphic Sydney stabbing footage, an \u201cunlawful and dangerous approach\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Elon Musk has labelled Australia\u2019s eSafety Commissioner a \u201ccensorship commissar\u201d.Credit: AP<\/p>\n

He has argued that X complies with country-specific laws but will resist global take-down orders.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not think I\u2019m above the law. Does the [Australian] PM \u2026 think he should have jurisdiction over all of Earth?\u201d Musk said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis platform adheres to the laws of countries in those countries, but it would be improper to extend one country\u2019s rulings to other countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Expert witnesses for X have told the Brisbane hearing this week that human users \u2013 not AI \u2013 are ultimately responsible if terrorism and violent extremism content is produced by Grok, given that humans are the ones responsible for prompting the large language models.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n

What happened on X after the 2019 Christchurch shooting?<\/p>\n

X initially refused to remove footage of the shooting, claiming that the clip \u201chadn\u2019t broken our safety policies\u201d. It later relented and did delete the video after it had been viewed thousands of times, but then struggled to control the spread of the video and the terrorist\u2019s manifesto.<\/p>\n

Twitter later committed to developing better AI detection, human moderation and crisis protocols, before it was taken over by Elon Musk in 2022, who has taken a more hands-off approach to content on the platform.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also worth noting that late last year the government announced plans to impose a \u201cdigital duty of care\u201d on tech companies such as X, to make them more responsible for reducing online harms. The legislation has yet to be introduced.<\/p>\n

The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why are X and the eSafety Commissioner back in court? X and Australia\u2019s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-207","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}