Meta and X cop takedown orders over Sydney stabbing videos

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has given Facebook, Instagram and X a 24-hour deadline to remove footage of a stabbing at a church in Sydney’s south-west.

The commissioner received a small number of reports relating to the live-streamed attack on Assyrian bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel at Wakely.

“I have issued a notice to X requiring them to remove this content. A legal notice will also be sent to Meta this afternoon, and further notices are likely to follow,” commissioner Julie Inman Grant told reporters.

The majority of the thousands of takedown requests Grant has issued platforms like Google, Meta and TikTok so far have been informal, but she said the platforms will be “formally compelled to act" following what NSW Police has declared a terrorist incident. 

Grant’s takedown powers were legislated to mandate a previously unenforceable, blocking scheme that platforms and ISPs voluntarily signed up to after the 2019, live-streamed Christchurch massacre.

Grant did not clarify if the platforms had also been ordered to remove photos related to a separate attack at Westfield Bondi Junction on Saturday.

However, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, whose government intends to broaden the types of content eSafety can remove, spoke of that incident at the press gallery yesterday.

“We remain concerned about the role of social media, including the publication of videos that can be very harmful, particularly for younger people," Albanese said.

“I think at times like this where everyone is a publisher, it can create some real difficulties. And I just say to people, think before you press send, because this can have a really disruptive impact on people.”

The government has proposed giving eSafety new powers to address doxing as well as pile-on attacks and harms facilitated through VR, generative AI, end-to-end encryption and recommender systems.