The Australian classification review board has overturned a decision to block Australians seeing footage of the shooting of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk on social media after Elon Musk’s X appealed against the ruling sought by the eSafety commissioner.
After Kirk’s death at Utah Valley University on 10 September, the eSafety commissioner applied to the board to have video of the shooting classified in Australia. The video was ruled to be “refused classification”, which allowed eSafety to serve notices on social media platforms ordering them to geo-block the posts from view for Australia-based users.
X appealed against the ruling on two separate Kirk videos. It also appealed a ruling on another video also deemed refused classification – the attack on Iryna Zarutska on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina in August.
X was successful in the cases. In the Kirk case, X argued the Kirk video contained brief violence, with no weapon visible. The footage was grainy and the camera moves away from the victim to the crowd quickly.
The social media company argued the video was not excessively detailed, gratuitous, or offensive, adding that the film is a neutral objective record of “a notorious public event of historical and political significance that prompted extensive public discourse”. X compared the video to the video of the assassination of John F Kennedy.
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The majority of the review board agreed that “notwithstanding the heinous nature of the event” the video was not gratuitous, exploitative or offensive to the extent that it should be refused classification, but that a more detailed depiction with different editing or commentary might rise to the level of refused classification. The board changed the classification of the videos to R18+.
The minority view disagreed, arguing that the post was “a shareable video for the likely purposes of entertainment and/or personal gain (such as likes, shares, or views) for distribution to users of a social media platform”. They argued it could not be compared to the Zapruder JFK video as that was released 15 years after JFK’s assassination, “once emotions around the matter had subsided”.
In a post on X’s global government affairs account, the platform welcomed the decision.
“X fought this case to uphold free speech and the importance of access to information about matters of public significance. We remain committed to protecting these principles.”
A spokesperson for the eSafety commissioner welcomed the ruling, but said the review board’s view that the video should instead be R18+ rated means platforms “have obligations to prevent R18+ material being displayed to Australians under 18”.
The regulator this week has not issued notices to any platforms regarding footage from the Bondi beach terror attack that has spread on social media, stating that while the images have been distressing, they have not reached the bar for refused classification.
The platforms have been advised to put sensitive content labels and interstitials, such as blurring, on this content in line with their own content policies.
