A royal commission has torn into Elon Musk and his social media platform X for showing “shocking disregard” to Australians by refusing to remove gruesome images of the aftermath of the Bondi terror attack — and using similarly harrowing photographs of Holocaust victims to justify doing so.

Richard Lancaster, counsel assisting the inquiry, was scathing in his remarks to the commission on Friday when he detailed the platform’s failure to assist the inquiry, musing whether X should be banned in Australia.

“X has demonstrated a complete lack of interest in providing transparency concerning a topic as important as keeping Australians safe from the proliferation of terrorist and violent mixed material, including extreme anti-Semitism,” he said.

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant had earlier told the commission X also fought against an order to remove harrowing Bondi massacre content from the December 14 attack by arguing it was “no worse than a gore movie”.

Mr Lancaster revealed that X had gone even further — including in is submission arguing to be allowed to keep the graphic content up “page after page” of images from the Holocaust.

“It was extraordinary of X to deploy those images. In my submission, they give no support to a contention that a video made in 2025 showing some of the deceased after the Bondi Hanukkah attack should be permitted to be shown online, and the use of Holocaust imagery in that context should be unequivocally condemned,” he said.

He tabled a bundle of correspondence between the commission and other platforms which either failed to co-operate or didn’t engage sufficiently.

“X decides to be active in Australia to fight for content to be available on X that would, if published, cause immense sadness and harm to the Australian Jewish community. Yet the same company refuses to engage with an Australian royal commission that is inquiring into ways to make social media a better place for Australian end-users,” he said.

Mr Lancaster also detailed how witnesses who spoke out about anti-Semitic attacks at earlier hearings were later targeted on social media apps after appearing publicly.

“X Corp’s conduct, both within this commission and outside of it, begs the question whether XCorp has or ought to have a social license to operate in Australia,” Mr Lancaster said.

Communications Minister Anika Wells on Friday wouldn’t be drawn on whether X should be banned from Australia but accused social media platforms making profits from Australian users of being “highly patchy” in complying with local law.

“I would urge social media platforms, if they want to make profits from Australian companies, if they want to transact their business on Australian shores, then they should uphold Australian laws,” she said.

“The efforts from social media platforms have been highly patchy when it comes to upholding and obeying Australian laws.

“That’s why we’re so keen to legislate the Digital Duty of Care in the second half of this Parliament.”

Mr Lancaster also hit out at platforms Telegram, Reddit, OpenAI, Twitch, and Kick for their engagement and actions to tackle anti-Semitic content.

It comes after several platforms who did appear before the commission revealed they didn’t have dedicated moderators based in Australia, including Meta, TikTok and LinkedIn.

Mr Lancaster highlighted the lack of resources and corporate presence in Australia as a concern for enforcement and regulation.

“The social media companies are not sufficiently addressing anti-Semitism online,” he said.

“Telegram has been identified in evidence as a platform that has a significant role in the spread of anti-Semitic content to Australian users,” he said.

“No part of the corporate group is incorporated in Australia. So far as we are aware, there are no physical corporate offices maintained by Telegram in Australia.

“What occurs on social media platforms like X and Facebook and YouTube and TikTok has profound consequences for Australians.

“Regulatory obligations must be imposed on them because they are not taking care of the problem themselves.

“If obligations are imposed on social media platforms, they must be capable of being enforced in Australia.

“If social media platforms are capable of inflicting harm, or are actually inflicting harm upon Australians, the laws of Australia must be capable of securing accountability for those harms.”

Commissioner Virginia Bell welcomed his remarks and vowed that the behaviour and engagement of online platforms would be a key focus of the royal commission.

“It will not come as a surprise to those who are following the work of this commission, that regulation of the online ecosystem in order to tackle hate speech and anti-Semitism in particular is very central work of this commission,” she said.