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alexandre de moraes
Brazilian Judge Orders Total Suspension of Elon Musk's X Social Network
"Elon Musk showed his total disrespect for Brazilian sovereignty and, in particular, for the judiciary," said Brazilian Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.
Aug 30, 2024
Brazilian Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes on Friday ordered the nationwide suspension of Elon Musk's X social media platform in response to the billionaire's failure to comply with the judge's directive to appoint a legal representative in the South American country.
Moraes ordered the "immediate, complete, and total suspension of X's operations" in the nation of 215 million people, "until the court's judicial decisions are complied with and the fines applied are paid" and "until a representative of the company in the country is appointed."
The judge also infuriated Musk by blocking his SpaceX company from conducting financial transactions in Brazil over millions of dollars in unpaid fines imposed on X—formerly known as Twitter—for breaking Brazilian laws.
"X Brazil failed to comply with several court orders, as well as the willful intention of evading responsibility for complying with the court orders issued."
Earlier this month, Musk withdrew X's staff from Brazil after Moraes threatened to arrest the company's legal representative if the platform did not delete user accounts spreading far-right misinformation and hate speech in violation of Brazilian law.
"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," Moraes said.
"The president of the National Telecommunications Agency, Carlos Manuel Baigorri, must take all measures to ensure the suspension," Moraes continued, adding that he "also ordered Apple and Google to take measures to block the use of the application by iOS and Android systems, in addition to removing it from their virtual stores."
Internet service providers and app stores have five days to comply with Moraes' ruling. People who use virtual public networks (VPNs) to skirt the new ban are subject to a roughly $8,900 fine.
Moraes stated that he "made every possible effort and granted every opportunity for X Brazil to comply with the judicial orders and pay the fines, which would have avoided the adoption of this more serious measure."
"Unfortunately," he added, "the illicit conduct was repeated in this investigation, making it clear that X Brazil failed to comply with several court orders, as well as the willful intention of evading responsibility for complying with the court orders issued."
In April, Moraes
launched a criminal investigation into Musk's alleged obstruction of justice and incitement to crime.
Friday's decision comes amid a monthslong feud between Musk—the world's wealthiest person—and Moraes. Musk has accused the judge of "censorship" and of being a "tyrant."
"Alexandre de Moraes is an evil dictator cosplaying as a judge," Musk
said Thursday on X in one of several increasingly sophomoric posts.
However, as Brazil-based journalist Brian Mier
explained, "this is about sovereignty."
"Treating a system where the rich can buy more reach than normal citizens as if it were a democratic commons, as a 'free speech' issue, is ludicrous," Mier wrote on X. "In the Global South, U.S. social media corporations are coup machines."
In the 1960s, the United States played an instrumental role in overthrowing a democratically elected Brazilian government and installing a 21-year military dictatorship in which a young Jair Bolsonaro—the former right-wing Brazilian leader who is the target of multiple criminal probes led by Moraes—served as an army officer.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva offered thoughts on Musk and the case ahead of Friday's ruling during a television interview.
"Who does he think he is?" asked Lula. "He has to respect the rules of this country."
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'Who Does He Think He Is?': Lula Criticizes Musk as X Defies Brazil Court Order
A monthslong standoff reached a critical juncture this week when a Brazilian judge moved close to ordering a shutdown of X in the country and froze the assets of another Elon Musk-owned business.
Aug 30, 2024
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva criticized Elon Musk on Friday after the X owner defied a Brazilian Supreme Court order to name a legal representative, as tensions between the billionaire and the government escalated and the social media platform risked being taken offline in Latin America's largest economy.
Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes late Wednesday gave the company 24 hours to name a legal representative in Brazil—a requirement to operate a business there—or have its operations shut down. X didn't comply, instead issuing the latest in a series of statements denouncing de Moraes. As of this writing, no shutdown of X in Brazil has occurred.
Another layer to the standoff was also revealed on Thursday: De Moraes on August 18 had quietly ordered the Brazilian bank accounts of Starlink, a Musk-owned satellite internet company, to be frozen, due to unpaid fines owed by X.
Lula, a left-leaning former unionist who retook the presidency early last year after leading the country from 2003 until 2011, defended the judge's position in a radio interview Friday morning, arguing that everyone, no matter how powerful, must follow Brazilian law.
"Just because the guy [Musk] has a lot of money doesn’t mean they can disrespect you," Lula said, according to a translation in The Guardian.
"Who does he think he is?" he added.
Tenho conta no Twitter há +de 10 anos. Sempre foi a melhor rede social.
Na Primavera Árabe no Egito, usei o Twitter pra enviar charges aos manifestantes.
Tenho história aqui.
Mas depois que o patife Musk o comprou, virou esgoto da extrema-direita.
Adeus Twitter. Vai fazer falta. pic.twitter.com/ao9Pbnu3wy
— Carlos Latuff (@LatuffCartoons) August 29, 2024
In April, De Moraes ordered X to deactivate more than 100 accounts of users whom he said were spreading disinformation. The accounts, which were not made public, are reportedly linked to the same far-right movement that stormed government buildings in Brasilia on January 8, 2023, in support of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who had just given up power days earlier. Bolsonaro, a far-right politician, spread lies of voter fraud and reportedly planned a coup after losing the 2022 election.
De Moraes led Brazil's effort to fight fake news ahead of the 2022 election and made the April ruling to try to combat disinformation ahead of municipal elections in October.
Musk refused to comply with the April order, arguing that it was illegal and an act of censorship targeted at the judge's political opponents. He has repeatedly called de Moraes a "dictator" and positioned himself as a defender of democracy. His defiance of de Moraes has drawn praise from U.S. Republicans and right-wingers in Brazil.
Musk calls himself a "free-speech absolutist" but critics have rejected that characterization. In a Common Dreamsop-ed last year, Free Press senior director Tim Karr argued Musk was "absolutely an enemy of free speech" and accused him of "taking extraordinary efforts to silence any honest criticism and independent research that might negatively impact him or his businesses."
Earlier this month, X closed its active operations in Brazil, saying that de Moraes had threatened their legal representative with arrest. That led to the standoff this week in which de Moraes ordered the company to name a legal representative.
The social media platform has, as X planned when it withdrew its staff, remained available to Brazilian users. When or if it will be closed following the closure of the 24-hour window is unclear. The company said in a statement that it expects a shutdown "soon."
To shutter the website, de Moraes would have to issue an order to the national telecommunications regulator, which would in turn relay it to internet providers. Experts say that process could be completed quickly—perhaps in 12 hours—but many Brazilians would still be able to access X via virtual private networks, or VPNs.
Some legal experts have criticized de Moraes for freezing Starlink's bank accounts, which makes it impossible for the company to do business in Brazil. Starlink provides internet services in remote areas, including in the Amazon. Starlink is a subsidiary of SpaceX, which is 42% owned by Musk. Musk has emphasized that SpaceX is an entirely separate company from X, with different shareholders.
De Moraes' rationale for the asset freezing is that X hasn't paid its fines, which accrue daily and are reportedly now above $3.6 million in total.
Brazil has more than 20 million X users, sixth in the world, according to Statista.
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'Historic Day' as Brazilian Court Hits Bolsonaro With 8-Year Political Ban Over Election Lies
"This decision will end Bolsonaro's chances of being president again, and he knows it," said one political scientist.
Jun 30, 2023
Brazil's highest election authority on Friday barred Jair Bolsonaro from running for any public office for the next eight years over the disgraced former far-right president's abuse of power related to baseless claims of electoral fraud—the first of 16 election-related charges he faces.
Five members of the seven-judge Superior Electoral Court (TSE) found that Bolsonaro violated election law last July when he summoned more than 100 international diplomats for a nationally televised 50-minute presentation in the Palacio da Alvarada—the executive residence—during which he disparaged the judiciary and claimed the country's electronic voting system was vulnerable to hacking.
This, despite there never having been any evidence of fraud during the system's three-decade history.
TSE President Alexandre de Moraes lambasted Bolsonaro's "cinematographic production" that was intended to "bombard voters with disinformation" to "raise more votes."
Moraes further said that Bolsonaro had a "clear sense of destroying the credibility of the electronic voting system" in order to "influence and convince voters that they were the victims of a huge conspiracy by the judiciary to rig the 2022 presidential elections."
In addition to his baseless aspersions against electronic voting, Bolsonaro asserted during the presentation that if he lost the 2022 presidential election to leftist challenger and current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, it would be due to "communist" meddling.
"It was a monologue in which there was self-promotion [and] disqualification of the judiciary," Supreme Federal Court Justice TSE Vice President Cármen Lúcia said during Bolsonaro's trial. "What public servants cannot do in the public space is to attack the Supreme Court as if the institution would not have been affected."
Bolsonaro's autocratic actions have been compared to those of former U.S. President Donald Trump, long ago earning him the nickname "Trump of the Tropics."
Supporters of the defeated president blocked roads and organized demonstrations after the election, and on January 8 thousands of protesters stormed Brazil's Congress, Supreme Court, and presidential palace to contest what they called a "stolen" election by da Silva and his allies.
Democracy and human rights defenders welcomed the TSE's decision and said Bolsonaro should be held accountable for his other alleged crimes, including "genocidal" policies and practices against Indigenous peoples.
Citing "four years of persecution, crimes, and hatred," Brazilian Minister of Indigenous Peoples Sônia Guajajara said that "Bolsonaro's ineligibility is an important step towards reparation."
"He must be held accountable for the countless crimes committed against our people," she added. "We will stand firm for indigenous rights."
Citing Bolsonaro's past as a soldier during the 20-year, U.S.-backed military dictatorship, Brazilian Tourism Board Chair Marcelo Freixo, a former Brazilian Socialist Party federal lawmaker, quipped that "Bolsonaro was elected as a captain... soon he will be a soldier in prison."
Rosa Amorim, a state lawmaker from Pernambuco in the Northeast representing da Silva's Workers' Party, tweeted that "the Brazilian people will enjoy Friday knowing that Bolsonaro is not even running for building manager."
Writing on his De-Linking Brazil Substack, journalist Brian Mier said that Bolsonaro's legal woes "are only just beginning," noting the 15 other election fraud charges he's facing.
"The Federal Auditing Court can rule that he misused public funds for personal electoral benefit and make him pay back the estimated 12,000 reais spent on the [Palacio da Alvorada] event," Mier wrote. "The attorney general's office can conduct a criminal investigation that could result in a possible jail sentence."
Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in São Paulo, toldThe Associated Press that Friday's ruling spells the end of Bolsonaro's comeback aspirations.
"This decision will end Bolsonaro's chances of being president again, and he knows it," Melo said. "After this, he will try to stay out of jail, elect some of his allies to keep his political capital, but it is very unlikely he will ever return to the presidency."
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