Extract from ABC News
Julie Inman-Grant has been called to testify at US Congress. (ABC News: Adam Kennedy)
In short
Australian eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant has been asked to testify before a US Congressional committee over concerns she is harming Americans' free speech.
The letter labels Ms Inman Grant a "zealot" and describes Australian law as a "foreign censorship regime".
A spokesperson for eSafety said Ms Inman Grant was deciding whether to agree to the request.
Australia's online safety regulator, Julie Inman Grant, has been labelled a "zealot" and called to testify before US Congress over concerns her office has censored the internet for Americans.
The eSafety commissioner received a letter from US Congressional committee chairman Jim Jordan on Tuesday, which took aim at Ms Inman Grant individually as well as Australia's Online Safety Act (OSA), describing it as a "foreign censorship regime".
"As a primary enforcer of Australia's OSA and noted zealot for global take-downs, you are uniquely positioned to provide information about the law's free speech implications,"the letter stated.
"Your expansive interpretation of [the OSA] … directly threatens American speech," it said.
Committee on the Judiciary chairman Jim Jordan signed the letter calling Julie Inman Grant a "zealot". (AP Photo: J. Scott Applewhite)
Ms Inman Grant has been asked to appear before the Committee on the Judiciary, which is considering reforms it said would protect the US from "foreign censors".
It is not yet clear whether Ms Inman Grant will agree to the request.
If she does, the ABC understands her testimony will likely be provided over video link, rather than in person.
The letter also accused Ms Inman Grant of having "colluded" with "pro-censorship entities" during a recent trip to the US, where she gave a keynote address at Stanford University — a key ideological target of the Trump administration this term.
The committee cited eSafety's 2024 court battle against Elon Musk's social media platform X as an example of what it called Ms Inman Grant's zealotry.
The regulator lost its bid to force the company to remove or hide about 65 instances of footage showing the stabbing attack on Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in Western Sydney last April.
"Your commission sought to compel X to remove content globally, arguing that its geo-blocking of the content was insufficient because Australians could use VPNs to access the content," the letter said.
VPNs, or virtual private networks, are a widely used technology that allows internet users to mask their location and in some cases evade local online content restrictions.
"Other censorship regimes, like the one in Brazil, have used similar justifications when ordering global take-downs of content and threatening fines for VPN use," the letter continued.
"Global content take-down orders are concerning because they … set the precedent that other governments may do the same."
The eSafety commissioner will be enforcing Australia's world-first teen social media ban due to come into force in less than a month. (AAP: Lukas Coach)
A spokesperson for eSafety told the ABC it now considered geoblocking to be a reasonable response to removal notices.
"This was most recently demonstrated through our acceptance of geoblocking in the Charlie Kirk, Zarutska, and Nagamallaiah murders," eSafety said, referring to several high-profile killings in the US, which were filmed and shared widely on social media.
The footage was recently banned under Australian classification rules, and eSafety issued removal notices to X and Meta, asking them to prevent it from being shown in Australia, although the regulator did not insist on global removal.
"There's nothing eSafety is doing that prevents American companies from displaying whatever they want to Americans," the eSafety spokesperson said.
Ms Inman Grant has been asked to respond to the committee's request and schedule her interview "as soon as possible, but no later than 10am ET on December 2, 2025".
A spokesperson for the commissioner said her office was still considering whether to agree to the request "in the context of eSafety's current priorities".
While eSafety did not specify what those current priorities were, Australia's world-first teen social media ban is due to come into force on December 10, and the commissioner is expected to enforce it.
"I'm answerable to the communications minister here and to the Australian parliament, and not to the US Congress," Ms Inman Grant said on Wednesday afternoon.
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