So why was the law suit actually dropped ?

When these people jump up and down and rant like lunatics then suddenly back down there must be a far better reason than the one they gave.

Inquiring minds would like to know....

I think it's possible that they either realised it would lose them votes if they continued to press the idea that they should act as censors for the entire world or they achieved the necessary effect from appearing to do something but didn't want to suffer the humiliation of a potential defeat in court.

The same minds that love to see radicalisation videos posted all over the net?

Thought so.

So why was the law suit actually dropped ?

Sounds like it's not dead, just resting-

"Today I have decided to consolidate action concerning my Class 1 removal notice to X Corp," wrote commissioner Julie Inman Grant, on grounds that doing so is "likely to achieve the most positive outcome for the online safety of all Australians, especially children."

So whether Australia will come back to this with additonal examples and additional charges against X. It's not like there's a shortage of extremely violent footage on the Internet and it's been like this since the days of rotten.com

"Our sole goal and focus in issuing our removal notice was to prevent this extremely violent footage from going viral, potentially inciting further violence and inflicting more harm on the Australian community,"

I think that genie's well and truly left the bottle. When this story broke, it was reported that the attack was livestreamed. So that would probably prompt some people to go search for it. If the video is taken down, someone, somewhere would probably just re-upload it. X could probably fingerprint it to block it from their service, but other services might not bother.

Personally, I think rather than playing whack-a-mole, some of these videos should be used for public safety and education. There are a few examples I can think of. So in the US, a kid decided to pack several pounds of tannerite into a lawnmower and shoot it. The shrapnel from the lawnmower promptly took the kid's leg off. The ATF tried to take down the video, but it, and many other examples still exist. Rather than a take-down, I think the ATF should have used this to (try and) educate people as to why packing tannerite inside containers like lawnmowers, fridges, microwaves etc is a really bad idea. Then get YT to make that video the top search any time someone looks for tannerite, exploding targets etc.

I think the same could be done for stabbings and shootings. People complain about Hollywood showing too much violence, but personally I think it's often not violent enough and doesn't show the real consequences of violence. Hero gets stabbed of shot, they shrug it off and get the girl/boy/gender of choice. Reality isn't like that, and there are plenty of examples of what really happens. One I remember was an argument I think in a Brazilian mall that rapidly escalted from shouty to shovey to stabby in a few seconds. One person was stabbed in the neck, quickly collapsed with a severed artery and bled out.with the whole thing probably fitting in a YT short. No idea what the argument was about, but probably something trivial, but left one person dead and the other in jail, but that's the kind of thing that can happen when people carry knives. I've seen some great anti-gang videos from the US where they interview gang members who've been shot, often with life changing injuries. and I think there needs to be more of these kinds of videos.

The "Look at us DOING SOMETHING to protect the children from evil social media" headlines have already been written. Anything beyond that might involve real work.

Rule # 1

This stabbing video will have garnered far more views than normal.

If only they’d just kept quiet.

That's presumably why they're consolidating now - then they can come back to get a general principle approved in law.

This particular genie is out of the bottle, but there is a serious contradiction when a video cannot be broadcast on the news, but can be published to all and sundry (note that I'm not calling out children, they're not the ones I expect to be influenced by this kind of video).

Anyone in any doubt Musk isn't fit to be in charge of changing his own pants in the morning let alone a social network?

Sharing a video of a knife attack and committing a knife attack are very different things.

Radacalization (negative) or Awareness (positive) are both outcomes of people watching the video and research is actually very weak on which approach is best (hiding it from people, or using it as a learning medium). So what do we do?

Since there is no comprehensive research pointing in either direction, then I do believe that the default of "freedom of information" is the correct option until more data is available to us. Even if that includes that smug twit, Elon getting more influence.

after he was stabbed by an Islamist. Thing is, I must have blinked for a few seconds and missed that in the mainstream UK news outlets. ( A friend told me, and I had to specifically "google" - actually DDG - it). I'm with Musk on this. Censorship is dangerous. How children are limited in what they access is a very important, but 2nd. level question.

I must have blinked for a few seconds and missed that in the mainstream UK news outlets

Must have been for more than a few seconds. BBC, Sky News, GB News, LBC, Daily Mail, Daily Express, Mirror, Sun, Guardian, Independent, Telegraph, Financial Times, all covered it in the UK and more besides.

If you keep an eye on world news you will find there are numerous shootings, stabbings, assaults, murders, which don't get reported by the UK media. The US has tens of thousands of gun deaths every year, including killing of cops, but we usually only hear of the worse mass shootings.

It raises an eyebrow that you only highlight a case where the assailant is an alleged Islamist. And are suggesting it wasn't covered in the UK when it certainly was.