Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, revealed she received death threats and her children’s private information was exposed online after Elon Musk targeted her for attempting to regulate content on his social media platform, X (formerly Twitter).

The commissioner had taken X to court earlier this year for refusing to remove global access to videos of a religiously motivated church stabbing in Sydney, though the case was eventually dropped.

Following the legal battle, Musk referred to her as a “censorship commissar” in a post to his 196 million followers, which led to an influx of abuse and threats.

Ms. Inman Grant reported that this “avalanche of online abuse” included credible death threats, prompting police to advise her against traveling to the US and to involve both federal and local authorities.

She stated that Musk’s portrayal of her as someone seeking to censor the internet was a “dog whistle” that incited widespread hostility.

A Columbia University report highlighted that she was mentioned in nearly 74,000 posts on X, mostly negative, following Musk’s remarks.

Many of these posts contained dehumanizing slurs and threats, using gendered insults like “left-wing Barbie.”

The commissioner’s office had initially sought to enforce a global ban on the church stabbing videos, but the Australian court ruled that such a move would likely be ignored by other nations, making it “unreasonable.” X’s Global Government Affairs team declared the outcome a victory for “freedom of speech.”

Despite dropping the case, Ms. Inman Grant emphasized that the abuse she faced is a serious issue, noting that threats of online harm can quickly escalate into real-world violence.