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 point without entering into the merits of the decision, which are not a matter for the Court. The decision is the subject of an application for merits review in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, where those merits can be carefully weighed with the benefit of detailed submissions and potentially expert evidence.

36 The decision to be made under the Classification Act, the Code and the Guidelines is evaluative and involves identification and application of "the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults". These things are highly debatable. While it is certainly arguable that the depiction of violence in the stabbing video is not sufficiently long, detailed or otherwise impactful to warrant an RC classification, it does not follow that the view taken by the delegate was not open.

37 For these reasons I have concluded that:

(a) on the current evidence, there is not a substantial possibility that X Corp will be able to establish that the removal notice is invalid; and

(b) if the Commissioner bears the onus to prove validity, there is not a sufficient reason at this stage to depart from the assumption that that onus can be met.

"All reasonable steps"

38 The source of the dispute between the parties on this issue is that, while X Corp has agreed to "geoblock" the 65 URLs specified in the removal notice (so that they are not accessible to users with IP addresses in Australia), the Commissioner contends that this is not sufficient to comply with the notice. A significant number of people in Australia use Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to connect to the internet without using an IP address linked to an Australian provider. These users, while physically in Australia, are not affected by the geoblocking X Corp has imposed and therefore still have access to the 65 URLs.

39 The Commissioner therefore seeks a final injunction that would require X Corp to remove the 65 URLs from its platform altogether or make them inaccessible to all users. There appears to be no dispute that, because of the use of VPNs, this is what it would take to prevent all users in Australia from going to one of the 65 URLs and viewing the stabbing video. The Commissioner argues that such action is within the "all reasonable steps" that the removal notice requires to be taken. X Corp argues that a requirement for worldwide removal or blocking of the material goes beyond what is "reasonable". eSafety Commissioner v X Corp [2024] FCA 499