Twitter's board of directors is urging shareholders to help them hold Elon Musk to the original terms of his $44 billion deal to buy the company by endorsing the deal at a special meeting in September.

The social media platform X's policy to remove harmful content when it chooses should not overrule the Australian law on what should be viewed there, the lawyer appearing for cyber regulator, e-Safety Commissioner, told a court hearing about the site's refusal to take down a video showing the stabbing of Assyrian Christian bishop on April 15.

X had ignored an order by e-Safety Commissioner that asked the site to remove 65 posts showing video of the bishop being stabbed during service in Sydney, what the police said was a terrorist attack. The site offered to geoblock the video in Australia, but refused to remove it globally arguing that one country's law should not rule the internet, Reuters reported.

Australia's independent regulator, eSafety Commissioner, had warned X and other social media companies with hefty fines if they did not remove the stabbing footage.

"X says ... global removal is reasonable when X does it, because X wants to do it, but it becomes unreasonable when X is told to do it by the laws of Australia," Tim Begbie, the lawyer, told a hearing of the Federal Court. Platforms such as Meta were quick to remove the content when they were asked to do so, he added.

He said that X had policies to remove very harmful content, but its stand to not remove the video globally is not right as it would determine the definition of "reasonable" within the terms of Australia's Online Safety Act.

Geoblocking was ineffective because a quarter of Australian population used virtual private networks that disguise their locations, the lawyer pointed out. "Global removal in these circumstances is a reasonable step," Begbie said. "It would achieve what parliament intended, which is no accessibility to end users in Australia."

During the hearing, the Australian Federal Police had informed the court, last month, that the video posed a "real risk" as it could be used to encourage people to commit terror attacks.

The site's refusal to remove the footage had triggered a verbal spat between Elon Musk, who owns X, and Australian leaders.

Following the order, Musk mocked the Australian government using a meme and accused them of censorship, BBC reported.

Calling Musk an "arrogant billionaire" Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said, "thinks he's above the law but also above common decency".

"Musk should put his big boy pants on and do the right thing, but he won't because he has no social conscience", Senator Jacqui Lambie had said in her social media posts. Musk responded that Lambie should be jailed and suggested the country's gun laws were meant to stop resistance against its "fascist government", Reuters reported.

Parliamentary Probe Against Social Media

The government announced a parliamentary inquiry to study the negative impacts of social media platforms, but did not elaborate the scope of the inquiry or who would be called to testify.

Pointing out how the social media platforms enjoyed a wide reach and control over what Australians see online, with almost no scrutiny, the government also criticised the platforms for not being quick enough to remove violent posts. The joint parliamentary select committee will also check Meta's decision to withdraw from paying for news in Australia.

"Across a range of issues, whether it be the issue of domestic violence, whether it be the radicalisation of our young people, across a range of areas, something that keeps popping up over and over again is the role of social media," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters. "(They) can be very positive but also can have a negative influence which is there."