Elon Musk’s social media platform X has announced it intends to file a legal challenge after the Australian government’s eSafety Commissioner ordered it to remove a post critical of an influential transgender activist or face a $782,500 fine.
The February post by Canadian activist Billboard Chris called female World Health Organisation policymaker, Teddy Cook, a female. It has since been geoblocked in Australia, where Ms Cook is from.
“Earlier this week, X was ordered by the Australian E-Safety Commissioner, subject to an approximately $800,000 AUD fine, to remove a user’s post,” X said in a statement.
“The post had criticised an individual appointed by the World Health Organisation to serve as an expert on transgender issues.
“X is withholding the post in Australia in compliance with the order but intends to file a legal challenge to the order to protect its user’s right to free speech.”
Billboard Chris, a campaigner against gender ideology, on Tuesday shared the removal notice from an unnamed delegate of the unelected Australian bureaucrat, Julie Inman Grant. Ms Inman Grant, an American, is paid almost $445,000 a year, and previously worked at X, then called Twitter.
The post shared a DailyMail.com article about Ms Cook, a radical “transgender” activist who is into bondage, nudism and drugs.
Ms Cook, a biological female, is an influential advocate for radical policies relating to “transgender” issues, such as taxpayer-funded sex change surgeries for Australians, and was present for the passing of NSW’s controversial “gay conversion bill” earlier this month.
That legislation codifies far-left definitions of “gender identity” into law in the Australian state, and as a result parents could be jailed for up to five years for trying to stop their children from “transitioning”.
The eSafety Commissioner’s Adult Cyber Abuse manager told X in the March 22 letter that the post, which is now blocked in Australia but has not been removed by the platform, must be taken down or a fine of up to $782,500 would be issued.
The letter also contained a screenshot of the X post, which the eSafety Commissioner claimed was likely to be “intended to cause serious harm to the Complainant”.
“This is because the Material misgenders the Complainant and reiterates that this point is deliberate, which is likely intended to invalidate and mock the Complainant’s gender identity,” the notice read.
“The Material also contains a statement that implicitly equates transgender identity with a psychiatric condition. This statement is deliberately degrading and suggests that all transgender people – and in this case the complainant in particular – have something that is ‘wrong’ about their psychology owing to their gender identity.”
Here’s the last page of the Australian government’s correspondence. pic.twitter.com/KScgzxZIOF
— Billboard Chris 🇨🇦🇺🇸 (@BillboardChris) March 26, 2024
The X post read: “This woman (yes, she’s female) is part of a panel of 20 ‘experts’ hired by the @WHO to draft their policy on ‘trans people.’
“People who belong in psychiatric wards are writing the guidelines for people who belong in psychiatric wards”.
Billboard Chris told Noticer News: “I stand by everything I said.
“A woman who thinks she’s a man — and who promotes queer theory, bestiality, and bondage — has no place writing guidelines for the health of individuals struggling with mental illness.
“The eSafety Commissioner has ignored threats of violence and threats of sexual violence towards women on this platform.
“It seems the way to get Julie Inman Grant’s attention is to claim victimhood through a trans identity, no matter how depraved that individual may be.”
He also explained on X why he would not be taking the tweet down: “I do not hold that woman in contempt for her transgender identity, because I maintain that gender identities do not exist. We are called males and females, and that’s that.”
He said it was a statistical likelihood that Ms Cook has psychiatric conditions, and that it was his opinion that she should not be writing WHO guidelines for others with similar mental health conditions.
United Australia Party Senator Ralph Babet was among the thousands who spoke out in support of Billboard Chris on X, reposting the removal notice with the “offending” post written out word for word.
Victorian MP David Limbrick said: “The eSafety Commissioner is a danger to free and open discussions on sensitive topics. The eSafety commissioner is ‘keeping you safe’ from opinions the Government doesn’t like.”
He later made a separate post on X saying the removal notice had made Australia a global laughing stock.
Australian writer John Goddard said the removal notice was “wrong on every level” and that it was “insane that the Australian government thinks it can be the arbiter of truth”.
