Elon Musk’s X wins appeal to lift block on Australians seeing Charlie Kirk shooting footage | Charlie Kirk shooting

Australia’s Classification Review Panel has overturned a decision blocking Australians from seeing footage of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk’s shooting on social media after Elon Musk’s X appealed the decision requested by the Electronic Security Commissioner.

After Kirk’s death at Utah Valley University on September 10, the electronic security commissioner asked the board to classify video of the shooting in Australia. The video was deemed “classification refused”, which allowed eSafety to issue notices to social media platforms ordering them to geo-block posts for users based in Australia.

X appealed the decision regarding two separate Kirk videos. He also appealed a decision regarding another video also considered denied classification: the attack on Iryna Zarutska on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina, in August.

X was successful in these matters. In the Kirk case, X argued that Kirk’s video contained brief violence, with no visible weapons. The footage was grainy and the camera quickly moved away from the victim and toward the crowd.

The social media company argued that the video was not excessively detailed, gratuitous or offensive, adding that the film is an objective and neutral recording of “a notorious public event of historical and political significance that sparked lengthy public debate.” X compared the video to the video of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

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The majority of review panel members agreed that “despite the abhorrent nature of the event,” the video was not gratuitous, exploitative or offensive to the point of denying it classification, but that a more detailed depiction with different editing or commentary could result in a denial of classification. The committee changed the classification of videos to R18+.

The minority view disagreed, arguing that the post was “a shareable video for the probable purposes of entertainment and/or personal gain (such as likes, shares, or views) for distribution to users of a social media platform.” They argued that it could not be compared to the Zapruder JFK video, as it was released 15 years after JFK’s assassination, “after the emotions surrounding the matter had subsided.”

In a post on X’s Global Government Affairs account, the platform welcomed the move.

“X fought this cause to defend freedom of expression and the importance of access to information on matters of public importance. We remain committed to protecting these principles.”

A spokesperson for the Electronic Safety Commissioner welcomed the decision, but said the review panel’s view that the video should instead be rated R18+ means platforms “have an obligation to prevent R18+ material from being displayed to Australians under 18”.

This week, the regulator did not issue a notice to any platform over footage of the Bondi Beach terror attack that spread on social media, saying that while the footage was distressing, it did not meet the bar for refusal to classify.

Platforms have been advised to place sensitive content labels and interstitials, such as blurring, on this content in accordance with their own content policies.