Watch: The Australian internet regulator taking on Elon Musk

As head of the world's first government agency focused on combating online harms, Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has become a favorite target for trolls, doxxers, digital harassers and some of the most fervent Elon Musk devotees, whose following on X has surpassed 202 million.

Inman Grant reported receiving "credible death threats" following a public dispute between the eSafety Commission and X over graphic images and disinformation related to the Bondi Junction stabbings in April. Musk, an increasingly vocal opponent of government efforts to regulate disinformation, also labeled Australian officials "fascists" for policies aimed at curbing falsehoods from spreading online.

The conflict between Australia and X is playing out offline, too. In early October, an Australian court upheld a government fine against the platform for noncompliance with an eSafety Commission notice regarding the company’s efforts to remove child sexual abuse materials.

On Sept. 24, 20204, Inman Grant joined Compiler and Cornell Tech's Security, Trust and Safety Initiative for a candid and sobering conversation with Tazin Khan, founder and CEO of Cyber Collective, about fighting online harms and Australia's novel approach to holding platforms accountable.

"Australians across all political stripes definitely support freedom of expression, but they understand that when it veers into the lane of online discourse and is particularly targeting those who are vulnerable, it's silencing other voices," Inman Grant said at Cornell Tech.

She acknowledged the immense scale of the work facing her team, which last year handled around 13,000 cases related to technology-facilitated gender-based violence, including cyberstalking and image-based abuse. Abusers need to face consequences, she said. "A deterrent for the most egregious is important because we don't want to be creating sociopaths who just think they can target people with impunity."