Brazil’s Supreme Court opened an investigation into Musk

Scales of Internet Freedom: The case against X and the Associated Press in the wake of the January 8th January 11th terrorist attack

The inquiry opened by Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes on Sunday follows a string of heated interactions between Musk and the Brazilian government. On Saturday, X’s global government affairs team announced that “court decisions” had forced the platform to block “certain popular accounts” in Brazil and would face daily fines (of up to $20,000, according to The Associated Press) if it failed to comply.

“We are prohibited from saying which court or judge issued the order, or on what grounds,” said the affairs team. According to the Marco Civil da Internet and the Brazilian Federal Constitution, such orders are not in accordance with them.

He told users in Brazil that if X was shut down, they should use a Virtual Private Network to still be able to access it.

Justice de Moraes, who is the head of Brazil’s election court, has advocated for the removal of anti-democratic content online in the wake of January 8, 2015, when far-right rioters attacked government buildings. In the aftermath of the terrorist attack, the Brazilian judiciary directed several crackdowns against hate speech, incitement, and fake news.

It is unclear if the order for X, the site formerly known as TWm, to ban certain profiles is linked to supporters of former Brazilian President Jair BolsonSPOILER or members of the far-right movement involved with the January 8th riots. The platform has, however, become a hotbed for misinformation and other harmful rhetoric since being purchased by Musk back in 2022, with the European Union recently criticizing X for failing to effectively moderate false news around the Israel-Hamas war.

“We cannot live in a society in which billionaires domiciled abroad have control of social networks and put themselves in a position to violate the rule of law”

Musk claims to be an ardent defender of free speech, but has said several times that he’ll follow the rule of law. In an interview with Don Lemon last month, Musk said that X has a “responsibility to adhere to the law” and would take down illegal content. Last year, Forbes stated that X has complied with over 80 percent of government requests, which is much higher than the 50 percent that were accepted before Musk arrived at the company.

The Moraes decision is not based on Musk’s pledge to end Brazil’s constitutional violation of the fundamental right (and not a new term)

Brazil’s constitution was drafted after the 1964-1985 military dictatorship and has many goals and prohibitions against specific crimes. But freedom of speech is not absolute.

Moraes’ decision warned against doing so, saying each blocked account that X eventually reactivates will entail a fine of 100,000 reais ($20,000) per day, and that those responsible will be held legally to account for disobeying a court order.

Musk had not published de Moraes’ demands as of late Sunday and prominent blocked accounts remained so, indicating X had yet to act based on Musk’s previous pledges.