Brazil’s Federal Police discuss the issue in new report commissioned by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.
UTL COMMENT:- I shall follow this closely - just a few years ago Brazil was free and now look - Commie Dictator and now there are serious problems!!! WTFU people your country is next!!!
By Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger
April 20, 2024
https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1781733287070937253
Yesterday, a Brazilian Supreme Court Justice, who is also the President of the Superior Electoral Commission, lashed out angrily at X owner Elon Musk. At an event heavily promoted by Globo News, Alexandre de Moraes claimed that Musk is part of a vast extremist conspiracy to undermine Brazil’s sovereignty and democracy. He claimed that Musk was an “irresponsible mercantilist” motivated solely by profits who had “united” with “extremist Brazilian politicians.”
But there is no evidence of any conspiracy. Musk did not know I would publish the Twitter Files Brazil. Nor did the Brazilian politicians who reacted to them. And many of the politicians and journalists who de Moraes is demonizing as “extremist” are advocates of freedom of speech, including the right to criticize de Moraes.
It’s true that some of the people who de Moraes is censoring have urged a military intervention and have made unsubstantiated claims about elections and Covid. I do not agree with many of the statements made by the people whom de Moraes has censored.
But freedom of speech means nothing if it does not protect people and ideas you disagree with. If we aren’t going to allow people to criticize democracy, elections, and vaccines, how will we ever know if they are bad? If people are spreading false information about democracy, elections, and vaccines, the best way to deal with the false information is with accurate information, not censorship.
The real extremist spreading disinformation here is de Moraes. If Musk were solely motivated by money, then he would not have stood up to de Moraes, which resulted in the Brazilian government halting all advertising on X, the resignation of X’s top lawyer in Brazil, who feared for his safety, and may result in de Moraes shutting down X in Brazil.
He is not simply demanding that social media platforms censor specific content by controversial journalists and politicians. He is demanding that all social media platforms ban them for life. He often does so through secret hearings without the right of appeal.
In fact, it’s all much worse than that. You can’t be a politician or journalist if you can’t communicate on social media. And so de Moraes is not just violating the Brazilian constitution’s protections of free speech, he is also attacking the freedom of the press, destroying careers, and interfering in elections.
De Moraes has acted unilaterally to invent entirely new laws. He is thus interfering and taking over the role of Congress and of the president. That means he is behaving like a dictator.
