https://www.reuters.com/technology/brazil-judge-takes-musks-x-fake-news-crusade-ramps-up-2024-08-30/BRASILIA, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes' decision to shut down billionaire Elon Musk's social media platform X is just the latest chapter in a no-holds-barred crusade against attacks on democracy and the political use of disinformation."We have a right to defend fundamental rights. Those who violate democracy, who violate fundamental human rights, whether in person or through social media, must be held accountable," Moraes said in a speech on Friday, without mentioning X by name or his decision.On Friday, Moraes ordered the full and immediate suspension of X in the country until all related court orders on X were complied with, including the payment of fines amounting 18.5 million reais ($3.28 million) and the nomination of a legal representative in Brazil.Moraes ordered telecomunications regulator Anatel to implement the suspension order, and to confirm to the court within 24 hours that it had carried it out.Musk, who is also CEO of electric-vehicle maker Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab and rocket company SpaceX, had previously denounced the threatened move as censorship.Moraes, 55, is a lawyer who was tough on fighting crime when he was in charge of public security for the state of Sao Paulo. He shot to prominence in 2019, two years after his appointment to the Supreme Court, when he began to lead an investigation into "fake news" being generated during the government of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.That investigation, which is still open, focused on what Moraes himself has described as a "cabinet of hate" that operated from inside Bolsonaro's presidential palace with the aim of attacking opponents and spreading lies and distortions.
"Brazilian institutions were failing to regulate social media properly," said André Cesar, a political analyst. "Moraes took on the role of grand regulator and he likes doing that."Among the falsehoods investigated by the judge was criticism by Bolsonaro and his political associates that Brazil's electronic voting system was open to manipulation.Moraes was also in charge of investigating an alleged conspiracy to provoke a military coup to overturn Bolsonaro's defeat by leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2022 and Bolsonaro's encouragement of his supporters to invade and vandalize government buildings a week after Lula took office.Under his leadership, the country's electoral authority declared Bolsonaro ineligible for eight years, the first time this happened to a Brazilian president in the country's history.While Moraes' defenders see him as a crusader in the defense of democracy, critics accuse him of using heavy-handed methods to raid the homes of politicians and businessmen, arrest them without trial and freeze their bank accounts.Musk, who has compared Moraes to the "Harry Potter" villain Voldemort, has also described the judge as a "dictator," calling him "an outright criminal of the worst kind, masquerading as a judge."In his fight against disinformation, the judge ordered social media networks to take down postings by politicians and influencers that he deemed to be a threat to Brazil's institutions, usually on accounts of Bolsonaro backers who denied he had lost his 2022 reelection bid.And that is where his run-ins with Musk's platform began.After Musk challenged his decision to bar certain accounts and said he would reactivate them, Moraes in April opened an inquiry into the billionaire for obstruction of justice.Earlier this month, X announced it was closing its offices in Brazil due to what it called "censorship orders" from Moraes, though it kept its site open for Brazilian users.
The judge warned on Wednesday he would suspend the service if X did not appoint a legal representative as required by Brazilian law. On Thursday, Moraes blocked the local bank accounts of Musk's Starlink internet firm, saying they could be used to cover fines that the judge previously imposed on X.Even as many Brazilians have sided with Moraes, insisting that Musk must comply with Brazilian law, some have asked if he has gone too far."He is a defender of democracy, but has overstepped his role as a judge at times when dealing with social media," said analyst Cesar, of consulting firm Hold Assessoria Legislativa. "He thinks public opinion is on his side, but I don't know for how long."Before sitting on the Supreme Court, Moraes was minister of justice after serving as secretary of public security in his home state of Sao Paulo.Moraes, a Catholic, holds conservative views on the economy. For years, he was a member of the centrist Brazilian Social Democracy Party which has largely vanished from the political landscape.
It's really interesting how Brazil had the same misinformation flooding their social media and even suffered a coup after their far right leader lost the election like America.But Brazil is willing to go after the terrorists behind the misinformation and the coup.
Leftism really is a cancer on human civilization.
>>1337022>we have to ban freedom of speech to save democracy
>>1337097Leftists don't give a shit about democracy.
>>1337097>>1337098>The truth is the first to be executed by the fascists
>>1337098Who was it that couldn't accept it when their guy didn't win a Democratic election and started a riot at the Capitol to overturn said election results by force?
>>1337100When was that?
>>1337101Depends on which fascist you're talking about, Trump or Bolsonaro, because they both staged coups.
>>1337107Did they?
>>1337108>Did they?Trump did, 100%. Look up the fake electors scheme. Had his own supporters forge documents saying they were the chosen electors when they weren't then encouraged Pence to use the confusion caused by these conflicting electors to refuse to certify the vote then kick the election back to the house to have them vote him to be the president. Its all in Eastman's memo. Trump's personal lawyer wrote this plan, in his own words, to "depart from the electoral count act".
>>1337116What a delightful fantasy you've invented.
>>1337116And Trump tried to have his VP killed for the act of 'following the constitution'
>>1337119You should really consider psychiatric help.
>>1337118Then I guess you're saying Trump and his legal team believes in a fantasy. They refute nothing I just said. Their argument isn't that Trump didn't do any of these things. Their argument is that he was the president when he did them so he should receive full criminal immunity. Cope.
>>1337130Wouldn't it be easier to just not cheat at elections?
>>1337131So now that you've pivoted to a completely different thing you concede that you were full of shit. The thing I said isn't a fantasy. Trump and his legal team don't refute any of it. Trump confirms it, Pence confirms it and Eastman, Trump's lawyer who wrote the memo proposing to overturn the ECA confirms it. Cope.
>no we are the good guys! >we just... uh... need to make sure speech is controlled to... uh... "protect OUR democracy"
>>1337132You know you're frying you brain doing this.
>>1337134>No argumentI accept your concession
>>1337135No one is arguing with you dude. You need help.
When the online vigilantes are going to fuck alexandre de moraes?
>>1337119That's the absolute worst case scenario interpretation of what happened. The most charitable interpretation is that Trump gave absolutely no shits for Pence's safety or the safety of any of the legislators. An hour after the rioting began Trump was informed of what was happening, knew that Pence had refused to overturn the vote and knew that Pence and his family had been evacuated. In the middle of the rioting, while lawmakers were hiding in closets and under their desks to avoid Trump supporters, Trump didn't ask them to go home. He didn't tell them to stop rioting or to leave the capitol or that what they were doing was unamerican. Instead, he tweeted “Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution" It took another two hours, three hours total after the rioting had started, for Trump to tweet out and tell his followers to go home despite several people in his administration, his daughter included, who testified to congress that she begged him to tell the rioters to go home while he sat in the White House and watched the violence on TV. For anyone who isn't familiar with any of this just listen to literally any of the testimony or transcripts from the Jan. 6th hearings. None of this is secret or conspiratorial or hearsay information. Its all widely publicly available and none of it is refuted by Trump or his legal team.
>>1337118>>1337125Facts don't care about your feelingsTrump lost, and his cult was willing and tried to up-end our republic to change that. Not to mention the embarrassing behavior on election night outside of counting locations...
>>1337136So, to review, you claimed that Trump's fake electors scheme was a "fantasy". Now, after being presented with facts you have absolutely no argument for you've abandoned the argument and retreated to name calling because you got absolutely fucking bottomed on a topic you know nothing about. You love to see it.
>>1337140>>1337142Your delusions aren't facts dude. Get help.
>>1337143Not him but you should know on this board gaslighting is like a giant sign saying NEWFAG ALERT.
>>1337139The fact his people were begging Trump to end the coup and his reaction was to inflame the attackers by saying Pence let them down pretty much erased all doubts he was trying to have Pence killed.
>>1337145Excellent post
>>1337143Keeping making posts like this, I want you to signal to all the lurkers in this thread just how desperate your shitposting has reached.
>>1337133>NOOOO! I SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO LIE WITH IMPUNITY AND THEN OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT BY FORCEGet fucked.
>>1337145I get that leftists like to cry gaslighting when someone points out your delusions, but if you actually got some help, you might stop believing nonsense.
>>1337149>we need to silence everyone who thinks we cheated because we're the good guys
>>1337151When they're traitors who's objective is to undermine the very foundation and principles of government to install a dictatorship, like Trump and Bolsonaro, yes.
>>1337152>it's okay when we undermine the very foundation and principles of government, because we're the good guys and people against us are bad guys
>>1337150U 'avin a melt, bruv?
>>1337155That's what Trump and Bolsonaro did.
>>1337158But it's only okay when you do it. Because you're the good guys.
>>1337164Now you get it.
>>1337166I've always gotten it.
>>1337143>What you said is a delusion and not true!>But I also can't give a single reason whyEnjoy your BTFO>>1337150>Zero argumentYou love to see it
>>1337149lick that boot.
>>1337179>Fighting for democracy and the truth means you lick bootsFascist seethe!
>>1337181>banning speech >fighting for democracy The fascist here is you.
>>1337179>If you believe in democracy and against fascists overthrowing it you're a bootlickerThe British would've loved you during the revolutionary war
>>1337182Fascism is a right wing ideology.
>>1337182>banning speech We don't live in Brazil you fucking moron
>>1337183You're literally siding with the government limiting peoples rights to expression and I'm the one who would be a loyalist? Mindrot.
>>1337185and yet here you are, advocating in favor of banning speech.
>>1337186>You're literally siding with the government limiting peoples rights to expression and I'm the one who would be a loyalist?I don't give a fuck what Brazil's government does. I don't live in Brazil. I live in the U.S.>>1337187>and yet here you are, advocating in favor of banning speech.You're arguing with somebody in your head. I have no clue where you're getting this ridiculous strawman from.
>>1337198>despite conduct that suggests actually I dont care tehehe Get real.
>>1337200The person in your head who you're arguing with sounds very unreasonable, anon. I don't know you want me to do about that. I can't control or defend the talking points of the person you're hallucinating
>>1337201>I dont care about BRAZIL!>he says, in a thread about Brazil
>>1337182>Thinking this is free speech LMAO
>>1337209My argument is that if you want me to be outraged over 1st amendment issues in Brazil you're a retard. I don't live in Brazil, Brazil doesn't have a first amendment, only the U.S. does. I live in the U.S. Trying to call people anti first amendment because of apathy about an issue in Brazil means that you've been indoctrinated by a media bubble that has trained you be outraged before using your brain to think about what you're being outraged about.
>>1337213The problem is the far right believe it's their moral right to attack democracy by spreading lies to destroy it.The fact that Brazil is pushing back hard against this infuriates them and why they're pretending they're the victim.
>>1337214>The fact that Brazil is pushing back hard against this infuriates them and why they're pretending they're the victim.For anyone that wants to argue with an actual person and not the strawman in their head I think there's plenty of arguments to be had about social media platforms and their role in shaping discourse. That being said, I'm an American. Under no circumstances should my government be making any decisions about banning social media platforms because of their messaging. With the benefit of free speech comes the inevitable downside of that speech often times is damaging. Misinformation and election denialism and lies spread by bad faith actors like Elon Musk are a huge issue but banning speech, clearly, is a violation of the first amendment. I'm not from Brazil. I don't care about Brazil nor do I know anything about their constitution or laws or system of governance. I can only speak from an American perspective.
>>1337215That's the million dollar question, how do you save American democracy when Trump himself admitted he practices Adolf Hitler's Big Lie and is backed by a massive propaganda network to spread it to the point he can incite violence or push to rig elections in his favor?
>>1337216That is the million dollar question - if the principal of free speech is truly sacred then would you allow free speech to destroy the very institutions that protect it? Its difficult to answer. My position is that if society is so fractured and so hateful towards itself that it can't function under a constitutional democracy than it doesn't deserve to exist. If we need to downgrade to authoritarianism just to stop our own low IQ population from destroying the country from within then our experiment has failed. If enough people are stupid enough to support and act on behalf of Trump then, as a population, we're done. That's how I feel, anyways.
>>1337220So democracy is doomed to fail because an authoritarian like Trump who will abuse the system to destroy it is inevitable. I find it funny that Brazil got its shit together over the US then.
>>1337222>far right fascist seething that they can't spread their propaganda with impunity Seethe
>>1337221>So democracy is doomed to fail because an authoritarian like Trump who will abuse the system to destroy it is inevitable.Our democracy and constitutional rights as we know it? Possibly. That's the fatal flaw of all similar systems - the freedom to express and self-govern also comes with the freedom to advocate against that expression and self-governance. Our system only works so long as everyone freely agrees and comports within its framework. Trump and the MAGA Republicans do not operate within the bonds of the constitution or American principals. Convince enough people that democracy should be destroyed and, inevitably, it will come to pass.
>>1337224So you're basically willing to kill yourself rather than make the necessary sacrifices in times of extreme crisis. It reminds me of Martin Luther King Jr's quote about how the white moderate was the greatest threat to black equality. Because they would refuse to do what's necessary to fix the problem, including sacrifice, in order to keep a false peace.
>>1337022>brazil judgeyou mean the same guys that are ally with china and russia, nice "democracy" you got there, leftoid.
>>1337022As someone that lives there i want to remind all of you that Brazil is not the US and does not have "absolute free speech laws" like America and we do not plan to have. As a example, racism is punishable by law here and the amount of racist and hate-filled posts on twitter went up by alot since Elon started tinkering with the website structure (alot of them could not be reported regardless of what you did).While alexandre has alot of suspicious actions regarding some of the bans he ordered on "X" most of us ultimately still side with him, no one really has patience for Musk's garbage here except his shills, vira-latas and bolsonaristas.For now we stay on BlueSky.
>>1337224Literal projection.
>>1337245You never dont lie
>>1337246You're doing everything you claim trump is doing, so you can stop trump from doing things he didn't even do.You faggots would be a lot less insufferable if you just said, yeah we fucking hate democracy and everyone who opposes us and we're going to do whatever it takes to ensure you are never a threat to our power. The gay pantomime about muh democracy is worse than the actual tyranny.
>>1337249Trump lied. People died.
>>1337258Okay bot.
>>1337239Butt enough about Trump
I don't see why Elon chose to put his foot down here. He was gung-ho for this sort of censorship in India and Turkey.
>>1337273We are top 6 nation that most uses TwitterYou can see the effects of banning 21 million people all at once by searching for Elons Twitter and seeing his absolute desperation
>>1337281We can make demands thats why we ordered Twitter to be banned nationwide and why muskie is already currently trying to find executives for any chance of us to get backIf you don't comply with our laws you get chopped its really that simple
>>1337283Call us whatever you want yank we don't give a shit about your respect lmfao.Also not point to coninue on yapping, Twitter is already banned.
Elon sure fell off
>>1337290I don't careI don't careNo one is using VPNs to access Twitter, we are all on BlueSky
>>1337293Sorry for having sovereignty over our own nation, you can go on X to cry about it>>1337296(You)
>>1337311You're welcome to sovereignty over your own nation. Do the world a favor and keep yourselves there.
>>1337273Because Elon is far right wing, so he'll suck up to far right wing government demands to push lies like India and Turkey.However when a government works to undermine the far right wing in favor of pushing the truth, like Brazil does, he'll throw a bitch fit. Like he just did.
>>1337224>>1337220>>1337215Sometimes you need to break the rules in order to save the system if the threat is existential.See Lincoln suspending habeas corpus during the Civil War.I have a feeling you'd let the confederates stage their treason without a fight.
>>1337022Elon lost in the actual courts so now he's trying to win in the court of public opjnion, and he's losing there too.
>>1337097>>1337099Wow, Brazilians are so dumb/weak that they could only speak their "truth" on a foreign social media site?
>>1337500Get a load of this concerned troll who at best is an appeasing Neville Chamberlain, and at worst, is an actual fascist trying to make sure people don't do what's necessary to stop Trump.
>Neville Chamberlain appeased Hitler: who denied Jews of more than just their right to free speech>A Brazilian judge = Winston ChurchillPick one.
elonshills really care about /news/ don't they
>>1337485>Sometimes you need to break the rules in order to save the system if the threat is existential.Not if the rule you're breaking necessitates the existence of the system you're trying to save. If you have a country in which people are allowed freedom of expression and you eliminate that right to save freedom of expression then the system, tautologically, no longer exists. The right, tautologically, no longer exists. If you end democracy to save democracy then democracy is gone. >I have a feeling you'd let the confederates stage their treason without a fight.I'm struggling deeply to understand how your brain managed to come to this conclusion. This is the exact opposite of my point.
>>1337500>Anyway, how well did the court of public opinion deal with the US wanting to ban Tik Tok for the same reasons Brazil wants to ban X? Oh right, absolutely skewered the US government for it so badly that Biden gave up on it.It wasn't the same reason. Brazil isn't banning X because they insist the U.S. is using X as a covert platform to illegaly spy on Brazilian citizens.
>>1337599Democracy didn't end with Lincoln, your hand wringers are exactly the threat MLK jr warned about.>>1337743Stop projecting.
>>1337025>Among the falsehoods investigated by the judge was criticism by Bolsonaro and his political associates that Brazil's electronic voting system was open to manipulation.>While Moraes' defenders see him as a crusader in the defense of democracy, critics accuse him of using heavy-handed methods to raid the homes of politicians and businessmen, arrest them without trial and freeze their bank accounts.Are they for real? You cant express your concern about the voting pulls being rigged? why the fuck are leftist defending this? just becuase they could shit on Elon.Guys look at Venezuela, the current president is saying that the votes werent rigged he could ban twitter as well for "spreading missinformation". Some one please explain to me why are they celebrating this? If they should were to fall in the other side they would be the ones getting arrested for "spreading missinformation? are they so mad at any other political opinion that is not theirs that they would side with a tyrant that could fuck everyone over just for 3 seconds of smugness? THEY CANT BE THAT STUPIDHoly shit
>>1337500The only reason why they are ok with fascism is because the see the themselves at the opposite end of the stick.See how thay re not backing up any of their claims, they cant deny that they are supporting a corrupted official that has been known sent to jail critics, this conversation is about people from brazil getting their plataform banned as hate speech because they have the possibility of criticize their goberment there.They are celebrating a country banning the opinion of their people by labeling it wrong think, they can not pull or quote anything with a source, they only have strawman to attack. I bet that they dont even know or can pull what were those opinions they got told that they were right wing so that they are ok with censor them.
