eKaren’s Latest Censorship Rampage
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant or eKaren as she is known, is at it again, attempting to censor the internet. Her latest censorship rampage is against the CCTV footage showing the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a train in North Carolina by black felon Decarlos Brown on August 22.
The footage of Iryna’s murder was released online on September 5. It showed Iryna on the train looking at her phone when Decarlos Brown jumped up behind her and fatally stabbed her three times in the neck with a pocketknife.
It had the effect of stirring in people both immense sadness for Iraya. This is someone who came to the United States with her family when war broke out between Russia and Ukraine in 2022 believing they were resettling and starting a new life in a safe country.
There was also outrage and anger that Decarlos Brown, a man with a violent criminal history, was out in the community where he could take Iryna’s life. Brown had been arrested 14 times since 2007. This included committing an armed robbery in 2014 while out on probation for felony larceny and break and enter, for which he spent 5 years in prison, being released in 2020.
Despite more arrests post his release, including for assaulting his sister, he never went back to prison. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and claimed a “man-made material” controlled his body when he was arrested at the start of this year for misusing 911. He was released yet again on a promise to appear in court by Magistrate Judge Teresa Stokes, who ordered him to undertake a mental competency evaluation, but it was never completed. Brown was dropped off by his mother at a homeless centre days before he murdered Iryna.
Iryna’s murder reminded so many Americans and Westerners of how so many out-of-touch judges released violent criminals back on the streets to reoffend and harm more people. Brown’s schizophrenia again put into focus the policy of deinstitutionalisation of those with mental illness despite the danger they pose.
The emotion the footage stirred in people and the fact that it was a black man murdering a white woman made it a target of internet censors.
It first became known that Australia’s eKaren was attempting to censor this footage from the internet when Belgium nationalist activist Dries Van Langenhove posted the removal notice X had been sent for his reposting of the footage of Iryna’s murder.
The Australian 🇦🇺 saga gets even crazier.
— Dries Van Langenhove (@DVanLangenhove) October 4, 2025
Moments ago X sent me a twenty-page letter they received from the Australian eSafety Commissioner in which she demands X removes or geoblocks the posts of 23 accounts including mine. X will be fined $825,000 (AUD) for each day that it… pic.twitter.com/7xC1V4WFXm
This notice had come from the Office of the eSafety Commissioner’s Manager of Illegal and Restricted Content. There are 166 employees in this office with an annual budget of $42.5 millionAUD
The reason given to X for this removal notice by the eKaren’s delegate is that they deem the CCTV footage class 1 material under the Online Safety Act 2021. If X does not remove Australian users’ access to the footage from all the X accounts listed in the removal notice within 24 hours X can be fined $825,000AUD per day for every single contravention.
eKaren’s delegate said in her notice that she would accept geo-blocking the videos as substantial compliance with the removal requirements.
In April 2024 when Ekaren started her censorship rampage she attempted to erase from the entire internet the live-streamed stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel during a sermon at his Christ the Good Shepord in Western Sydney by a radical Islamist teen. The Bishop thankfully survived the stabbing as the switchblade failed, but lost an eye. eKaren did not abide by the wishes of the Bishop for the video of his stabbing to remain online.
X took eKaren to the federal court of Australia which ultimately to to her dropping the case in June of that year which had the affect of now only geoblocking for Australian users now being sought by the office of the eSafety Commissioner.
eKaren again suffered defeat in the Administrative Review Tribunal after using an informal removal notice against a video by Celine against the machine, which exposed a Queer club for primary school students in Melbourne.
🚨WOW🚨
— Celine against The Machine 🇭🇲 (@celinevmachine_) May 29, 2024
It was brought to my attention that there was a certain kind of club being run in a Melbourne Primary School, so I looked into it.
A “Queer Club” was started in May 2023 at Montmorency South Primary School for students in Years 3-6.
For those overseas, that means… pic.twitter.com/Ws0PjPPDU6
She also against Billboard Chris in the same tribunal after it ruled that the harm threshold had not been reached for her to remove his post on X about Australian transgender activist Teddy Cook for so-called cyber abuse.
The Free Speech Union of Australia which supported both Celine against the Machine and Billboard Chris has filed another claim against the esafety Office in the ART for her remove notice against the CCTV footage of Iraka’s murder.
THREAD: FSU Australia has just filed yet another claim against the @esafetyoffice for her latest attempt to censor free discussion on the news.
— Free Speech Union of Australia (@FSUofAustralia) October 6, 2025
In this case, it concerns an attempt to ban anyone viewing the murder of Iryna Zarutska. pic.twitter.com/o9NJaHafqu
Former Federal MP George Christensen reuploaded the footage of Iryka’s murder in protest of eKaren’s removal notice.
eKaren’s power will increase with the Under 16s social media ban passed by the Australian Parliament last year coming into effect on December 10. This means that all Australians will have to verify their age before logging onto social media
The legislation entitled the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024 banned the use of a government-issued digital ID for age verification. Though at Senate Estimates this week eKaren said the legislation only bans digital ID as the only form of age verification and social media platforms must provide alternatives.
Another form of age verification that will be used is facial ID, which eKaren mentioned earlier this year would be similar to the Face ID used to unlock your iPhone.
She was asked in Senate Estimates by Liberal Senator Alex Antic who voted against the legislation how would social media platforms would store facial ID.
Coercion to digitally identify is the bridge too far.
— Matthew Camenzuli (@Matt_Camenzuli) October 9, 2025
I developed a love for technology when I was young. I got my first computer at 8 years old. By the time I was 9 I could do things with it that my parents could not fathom.
I just understood it. It made sense, and I spent my… pic.twitter.com/95aIIDSC27
But eKaren doesn’t like to call a social media ban for U16 instead she calls it a delay in this video she uploaded to social media ironically for parents to talk to their children about the upcoming ban, sorry I mean delay.
Yet with two months to go until the U16 ban comes into effect we still don’t have a complete list of social media platforms covered by the ban. Whether we will be compelled to verify our age for a google search or to browse YouTube.
Polling last year showed 90% support for the idea of a social media ban for u16 but 80 per cent still have privacy and security concerns about implementation.
We don’t have findings of the government-commissioned trial of more than 50 age verification technologies to see how each of them worked.
Despite all these uncertainties about whether the Under 16’s social media ban will actually work and achieve the child protection goals the government claims it will bring, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his new Communications Minister Anika Wells were spruiking its unproven benefits to the United Nations General Assembly.
Remember that the Under 16 social media ban and the office of the eSafety Commissioner have bipartisan support. The office was created by the Abbott Government in 2015, and it was the Morrison Government that gave eKaren even more power through the Online Safety Act in 2021 and reappointed her until 2027.
Many Australians will probably get a rude shock on December 10 if they find themselves logged out of their social media apps and be asked to use an age verification method. Some have said they plan to circumvent age verification by using a Virtual PN, and some have said they will log out of social media completely rather than comply.
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