Justice Alexandre de Moraes has ordered the suspension of X in Brazil after the tech billionaire refused to name a legal representative in the country.
This is after de Moraes threatened to jail his last legal representative and froze her bank accounts.
The AP played that down in their report, calling it a feud and drawing equivalence. The AP and other mainstream media continually ignore Brazil’s descent into dictatorship. You can’t have freedom without free speech.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes warned Musk on Wednesday night that X could be blocked in Brazil if he failed to comply with his order to name a representative, and he established a 24-hour deadline. The company hasn’t had a representative in the country since earlier this month.
“Elon Musk showed his total disrespect for Brazilian sovereignty and, in particular, for the judiciary, setting himself up as a true supranational entity and immune to the laws of each country,” de Moraes wrote in his decision.
The justice gave internet service providers and app stores five days to block access to X and said the platform would stay suspended until it complied with his orders. He established the same deadline for app stores to remove virtual private networks or VPNs and set a daily fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) for people or companies using them to access X.
X Will Not Comply
X posted on its official Global Government Affairs page late Thursday that it expected de Moraes to shut down X. They said it was “simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents.”
“When we attempted to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts,” the company wrote. “Our challenges against his manifestly illegal actions were either dismissed or ignored. Judge de Moraes’ colleagues on the Supreme Court are either unwilling or unable to stand up to him.”
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The AP noted: Musk, a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist,” has repeatedly claimed the justice’s actions amount to censorship, and his argument has been echoed by Brazil’s political right. He has often insulted de Moraes on his platform, characterizing him as a dictator and tyrant.
De Moraes is a tyrant, and Brazil is a dictatorship. There was a time when US media would tell the truth.
Musk does censor X. He’s not an absolutist.
The AP did admit they’ve threatened other platforms:
Lone Brazilian judges shut down Meta’s WhatsApp, the nation’s most widely used messaging app, several times in 2015 and 2016 due to the company’s refusal to comply with police requests for user data. In 2022, de Moraes threatened the messaging app Telegram with a nationwide shutdown, arguing it had repeatedly ignored Brazilian authorities’ requests to block profiles and provide information. He ordered Telegram to appoint a local representative; the company ultimately complied and stayed online.
Meanwhile, Musk’s lawsuit against Media Matters moved forward after the judge denied the motion to dismiss. Musk claims X lost millions in advertising revenue due to Media Matters. They pushed for major advertisers like Apple, IBM, and Disney to boycott the company.
BREAKING: Brazil suspends X — Brazil’s Supreme Court announces that anyone using VPN to access Twitter / X will be fined up to $8,874 a day
— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) August 30, 2024
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