X’s ‘licence’ to operate in Australia questioned

Senior counsel assisting the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion has openly questioned whether X should be permitted to keep operating in Australia.

Richard Lancaster SC has delivered a withering assessment of Elon Musk’s platform as the Commission’s third block of hearings closed in Sydney.

He told the Commission that X Corp’s conduct, both before the inquiry and in its dealings with government and regulators, “begs the question whether X Corp has or ought to have a social licence to operate in Australia”.

Lancaster singled X out for particular criticism, telling Commissioner Virginia Bell SC that the Commission had written to the platform on more than one occasion but received only an acknowledgement that its letter had been received.

He said evidence from Tal-Or Cohen of CyberWell, which monitors online antisemitism globally, was that X, along with YouTube, continued to present the most significant challenges among the platforms her organisation tracked, particularly around coded antisemitism, AI-generated content and emerging narratives.