Elon Musk’s X slammed by Bondi commission for ‘double standards’ on online hate

Trillionaire Elon Musk’s social media platform X has been slammed for its apparent double standards: being a free speech proponent but staying silent when asked about its failures on tackling online hate.

Musk bought the company formerly known as Twitter for north of $60bn (US$44bn) in 2022, restored accounts banned for hate speech, dismissed online safety staff, denied its responsibility to protect children from “violent porn” and argued footage of the December Bondi terrorist attack and ‘Holocaust jokes’ should be allowed online.

The company was subject of bruising and candid comments from the barrister leading the Bondi attack royal commission on Friday, in a week where questions were also raised about the balance and oversight of public broadcasters ABC and SBS.

“X has demonstrated a complete lack of interest in providing transparency concerning a topic as important as keeping Australians safe from the proliferation of terrorist and violent extremist material, including extreme anti-Semitism,” Richard Lancaster said, as part of a 15-minute address.

“(This is) despite earning substantial advertising revenue from publishing content to Australian end users, and, in the case of X, despite the fact that it has invoked Australian regulatory and court processes in order to advance its commercial interests.

“X decides to be active in Australia to fight for content to be available on X that would, if published, cause immense sadness and harm to the Australian Jewish community; yet the same company refuses to engage with an Australian royal commission that is inquiring into ways to make social media a better place for Australian end users.”

Mr Lancaster questioned whether X had a “social licence” to operate in Australia, and sent “page after page of images from the Holocaust” to support their case for videos of victims of the Bondi terror attack to remain online.

“It was extraordinary of X to deploy those images in my submission. They give no support to a contention that a video made in 2025 showing some of the deceased after the Bondi Chanukah attack should be permitted to be shown online, and the use of Holocaust imagery in that context should be unequivocally condemned,” Mr Lancaster said.

“X Corp has not responded to any of this. Although an apparent proponent of unconstrained speech, X has remained silent in the course of its work.”

Shocking content social media giants defend

Bondi survivor and target of a smear campaign Arsen Ostrovsky described facing “a relentless tsunami of Jew hatred online” involving deepfake images depicting him as a “crisis actor” after the terror attack which killed 15 innocent people.

Mr Ostrovsky told the commission he submitted complaints to X, YouTube and Meta.

While Meta had taken action to remove AI-manipulated images of him from Instagram and Facebook, both X and YouTube only confirmed receipt of the report.

On Tuesday, a YouTube executive defended the approval of a video which involves four men saying Mr Ostrovsky was “a front man”, “Zionist” and “intelligence asset” for Israel with a “degree in theatre”.

“This dude is clearly out using it as his own propaganda,” one of the creators said.

“I don’t believe that blood, I mean he definitely dressed that … up for sure.”

Rachel Lord, a senior manager at YouTube Australia said the video had been “thoroughly” reviewed at “quite senior levels” resulting in the content being determined as “non-violent”.

“What I have been told from the teams that have reviewed the video, is that it is non-violative and it remains on the platform,” she told the commission.

Meanwhile, Meta claimed they had censored “too much content” despite sharing shocking statements which are allowed under their dehumanising speech policy.

“White people are all Nazis”, “Immigrants are scum” and “Black people are more violent than whites” are just some of the sentiments allowed on Instagram, Threads and Facebook, the commission heard.

The company argued it was not their “role to police offensiveness” in a provided written statement.

“It is important to distinguish between speech that is offensive and content that could lead to offline harm.”

“Speech like this, including insults about a group’s abilities to perform specific tasks, are non-violating and allowed. This also applies to things like ‘trans people don’t exist’ or ‘gay people are sinners’.”

Advocate against Antisemitism Marnie Perlstein condemns the ABC’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict, arguing the national broadcaster has abandoned balance.

“This is a serious issue because I think our National Broadcasters ceased to be a balanced news outlet and actually have morphed into a political advocacy platform,” Ms Perlstein told Sky News host Chris Kenny.

“There have been repeated mistakes made by the ABC that haven’t been corrected.

“I do feel that the reporting is always one-sided; there is never any mention of Hamas, there is always mention about Israel’s role in the situation.”

Anti-Semitism envoy scolds public broadcasters, pushes for independent review committee

The journalism of public broadcasters the ABC and SBS was put under the microscope, as anti-Semitism envoy Jillian Segal suggested Jewish communities felt coverage of the Middle East conflict “lacked balance”.

“Those infelicities or lack of appropriate care exacerbated the prevalence of anti-Semitism in Australia due to the conflation of Jewish identity with the State of Israel and its actions,” she said.

Ms Segal was highly critical of the ABC’s reporting after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza, pushing for an external regulator to monitor both the ABC and the SBS.

She claimed they were essentially allowed to “mark their own homework” without a strong enough regulatory system to oversee their editorial standards.

Both the ABC and the SBS said they had an “independent” ombudsman system that deals with a large number of coverage complaints and provides publicly available insight into their processes.