The Brazilian courts have asked X, formerly Twitter, to block certain accounts that that country’s (highly-politicized) justice system has deemed a threat to the public for spreading “disinformation” and engaging in “hate speech.”
X owner Elon Musk, however, has decided not to abide by Brazilian censorship rulings, to which Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes responded,
The flagrant conduct of obstruction of Brazilian justice, incitement of crime, the public threat of disobedience of court orders and future lack of cooperation from the platform [X] are facts that disrespect the sovereignty of Brazil … [X] must refrain from disobeying judicial orders, including by reactivating an account that the Supreme Court ordered blocked.
On Sunday, the Supreme Court of Brazil opened an official inquiry into Musk’s decision, which may result in X getting blocked in Brazil.
Brazilian censorship has already resulted in the Rumble video platform opting out of the country after being forced to process constant legal orders to block dissenting voices.
In fact, the overreach goes further than mere censorship. Particularly concerning is one of the revelations contained in the Twitter Files, according to which, before 2022, Brazilian authorities apparently asked X to make private messages from Brazilian accounts that had retweeted dissenting opinions available to them.
Investigative journalist Michael Shellenberger has spearheaded research into Brazil’s abusive approach to online speech, which he summarized in a tweet that Elon Musk endorsed as accurate (he also recently spoke to Glenn Greenwald to explain the situation).
Shellenberger writes that de Moraes is not only violating U.S. freedom of speech but the Brazilian constitutional order as well:
The Twitter Files for Brazil …show that Moraes has violated the Brazilian Constitution. Moraes illegally demanded that Twitter reveal private information about Twitter users who used hashtags he considered inappropriate. He demanded access to Twitter’s internal data, violating the platform’s policy. He censored, on his own initiative and without any respect for due process, posts on Twitter by parliamentarians from the Brazilian Congress. And Moraes tried to turn Twitter’s content moderation policies into a weapon against supporters of then-president Jair Bolsonaro. I say this as an independent and non-partisan journalist. I’m not a fan of either Bolsonaro or Trump. My political views are very moderate. But I know censorship when I see it.
The controversy transcends Twitter, however, and casts Musk in much better light than other tech CEOs:
The Twitter Files also revealed that Google, Facebook, Uber, WhatsApp and Instagram betrayed the people of Brazil. If such evidence is proven, the executives of these companies behaved like cowards: they provided the Brazilian government with personal registration data and telephone numbers without a court order and, therefore, violating the law. When Twitter refused to provide Brazilian authorities with private user information, including direct messages, the government attempted to sue Twitter’s top Brazilian lawyer.
Musk has tweeted that, if the platform does get blocked, Brazilians should resort to VPNs to continue to access it. In the past, Musk has described himself as a “free speech absolutist,” albeit he has been quite inconsistent in this regard. He does, however, seem to be firm in opposing what we may call Brazil’s da Silva/de Moraes regime.
