The X-tent of eSafety's reach
When it comes to legal action against global tech companies, just how long is the arm of the law? That’s the question facing legal teams on both sides of the eSafety Commissioner’s legal battle against X.
In recent years tech companies including Apple, Meta and Alphabet-owned Google have disputed — and lost — arguments over the Federal Court of Australia’s jurisdiction in legal disputes with private companies and regulators.
Most recently, a battle between Meta and Australia’s privacy regulator over questions of jurisdiction went all the way to the High Court. Judges eventually threw out the claim by the social media company — named Facebook at the time proceedings began — that the US parent hadn’t carried on business in Australia at the time of its Cambridge Analytica data breach. That matter is now back before the Federal Courts.
But lawyers observing the eSafety Commissioner’s lawsuit against X (formerly Twitter) over orders to remove graphic footage of the stabbing of a Christian bishop in Sydney’s west say preceding jurisdictional battles with tech companies offer little clarity for this case, which is due back before the courts on 10 May.
“[These cases] aren’t really the precedents we might think,” Addisons partner Justine Munsie told Capital Brief.
