Elon Musk said an Australian senator (Jacqui Lambie) should be jailed and suggested the nation’s gun laws were meant to halt resistance against its “fascist government”, intensifying his battle over a court order to remove video posts of a bishop being stabbed.After Australia’s federal court asked Musk’s social media platform X to temporarily stop showing video of a knife attack on an Assyrian bishopin Sydney a week earlier during a church service, Musk accused the nation’s leaders of attempting to censor the internet, provoking an outpouring of denunciation from lawmakers.One particular senator, Jacqui Lambie, deleted her X account on Tuesday to show dissent against the publication of the footage and called for other politicians to do the same, stating Musk had “no social conscience or conscience whatsoever”. She added Musk should in fact be jailed.

When an unidentified X user posted overnight that it was Lambie who “should be in jail for censoring free speech on X”, Musk retorted to his 181 million followers, “Absolutely. She is an enemy of the people of Australia”.A representative for Lambie (who is independent senator of Tasmania), declined to comment.Targeting individuals is an unvarying strategy of Musk, the world’s third-richest person, as he goes after governments which try to exercise more oversight of content on social media.A Brazilian judge who told X to block some accounts as part of an investigation into digital militias, has been singled out by Musk.

Musk intensified his attacks on Australia, including promoting a post from an unidentified but verified X user which said the nation “disarmed all of their citizens in 1996 so that they cannot resist their fascist government”, a reference to a gun buy-back and registration scheme after the country’s worst mass shooting.Musk reacted with an exclamation mark.Another verified anonymous X account posted a screenshot of a text message with claim that it is from a “friend living in Sydney”, saying “Evil has penetrated Australia’s government hard”. “Whoa!” Musk responded.Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neill stated social media sites created “civil division, social unrest … and we’re not seeing a skerrick of responsibility taken”.”Instead, we’re seeing megalomaniacs like Elon Musk going to court to fight for the right to show alleged terrorist content on his platform,” she added.

Police have charged a 16-year-old with a terrorism crime in the attack on Assyrian bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel. Videos online clearly showed the fanatic attacker, restrained by the congregation, yelling at the bishop for insulting Islam.Far right Senator Pauline Hanson supported Musk, saying the takedown order was the centre-left Labor government’s “convenient excuse to increase their power to control what truths, ideas, information, and opinions you are able to share”.