Australia’s eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant says she got “credible death threats” after clashing with tech billionaire Elon Musk earlier this year.
Highly graphic videos and misinformation flooded Mr Musk’s social media platform X in April after the deadly Bondi Junction stabbings and a subsequent stabbing of an Assyrian Orthodox priest in Sydney’s southwest.
Ms Inman Grant tried forcing X to remove violent footage of the attacks circulating on the platform, but the platform refused, sparking a legal fight amid a torrent of severe online criticism, including from Mr Musk himself.
The eSafety commissioner eventually dropped her Federal Court case after a series of legal setbacks.
eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant says she got ‘credible death threats’ falling her clash with tech billionaire Elon Musk. Picture: NewsWire
Speaking to ABC radio on Friday, Ms Inman Grant said she copped “gendered abuse” in an attempt to silence her as a public official.
“You don’t see men getting rape threats or comments about their appearance, their age, their traditional roles and the same sort of weaponization of their children, family against them,” she said.
An independent report on technology-facilitated gender-based violence found 83 per cent of the tens of thousands of X posts directed at Ms Inman Grant after her action against the platform were negative, hateful or threatening.
Most of the posts were either sexualised or targeted her gender in some way.
“There were some credible death threats,” Ms Inman Grant said.
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