In April 2024, the Brazilian Supreme Court asked X (formerly Twitter) to suspend some accounts, which X refused. On 30 August 2024, the Brazilian Supreme Court banned X in Brazil.
To understand the whole picture, we need to look into Brazil’s 2022 elections.
2 October 2022
General elections were held in Brazil to elect the President and a new government. The election was between right-wing conservative leader Jair Bolsonaro and left-wing leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro had the support of Donald Trump, while Lula received backing from George Soros and the global left ecosystem.
In Brazil, it is compulsory to achieve a minimum of 50% of the vote to form a government. Lula received 48.43% of the votes, while Bolsonaro received 43.20% in the first round. Since no candidate received 50% of the votes in the first round, a runoff election was held on 30 October.
In the second round, Lula received 50.90% of the votes compared to Bolsonaro’s 49.10%, making it the closest presidential election result in Brazil to date. Bolsonaro made several pre-emptive allegations of electoral fraud and challenged the results in the Superior Electoral Court. The next day, the court rejected his request and fined him $4.3 million for what it considered bad faith litigation.
1 January 2023
Lula was sworn in as President of Brazil. A week later, pro-Bolsonaro protesters stormed the offices of the National Congress.
8 January 2023
A mob of Bolsonaro’s supporters attacked Brazil’s federal government buildings in the capital, Brasília. The mob invaded and caused deliberate damage to the Supreme Federal Court and the National Congress Palace. The matter reached the Supreme Court.
April 2024
Hearing started after 1 year in April 2024 Alexandre de Moraes, Supreme Court Judge of Brazil who was hearing this case of “Brazilian Congress Attack” asked X to suspend some Bolsonaro supporters accounts who were involved in planning and execution of these attacks.
Alexandre de Moraes is a Supreme Court Judge, earlier he was in politics and was Justice Minister of Brazil De Moraes was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Michel Temer in 2017 He has been a widely controversial figure, and have both supporters and opponents
While critics say he is authoritarian, abusive, anti-constitutional, and partisan His supporters say its necessary to prevent rise of extremism Among Moraes’ supporters is Lula da Silva, and among his critics is the former right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro.
After the attack, Moraes ordered several social media platforms to block specific accounts that had been involved in the planning, stating that companies would be fined if they failed to comply Over time, Moraes ordered more X accounts to be blocked without revealing the motive.
6 April 2024
X Corp. stated that it had received a court order from Alexandre de Moraes to suspend several accounts. Elon Musk announced that he would not comply with the ruling to protect freedom of expression and suggested that users could circumvent the block using a virtual private network.
9 April 2024
Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Moraes included Elon Musk’s name as an accused in an ongoing investigation over the dissemination of fake news and opened a separate investigation for alleged obstruction.
3 April 2024
American journalist Michael Shellenberger released the “Twitter – Brazil Files,” accusing Moraes of running a censorship factory to silence criticism. Shellenberger, who had been writing on this topic for some time, previously claimed in a X post in January 2024 that Soros and the FBI were behind Supreme Court Judge Moraes.
Moraes repeatedly asked Elon Musk to block around 500 accounts (the identities of which were not revealed but were reportedly Bolsonaro supporters). Musk did not block them to preserve freedom of speech.
17 August 2024
Twitter closed its offices in Brazil.
30 August 2024
Moraes ordered that Twitter be suspended in Brazil until the platform complied with the court’s orders. Additionally, Moraes froze the financial assets of Starlink to cover unpaid fines amounting to $3.28 million imposed on X for non-compliance.
Conclusion
Elon Musk is still fighting for the freedom of speech of the accounts that Moraes wants to ban. He chose to forgo all business in Brazil rather than comply with the court’s orders.
Who is right and who is wrong here? You decide.
