Brazilian flag / Adobe Stock (Left), X by bongkarn / stock.adobe.com (Right)
CV NEWS FEED // The Brazilian Supreme Court will rule on September 13 on a case related to the censorship of X in the country, according to a recent report from Reuters.
Last week, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes prohibited the use of X in the country, according to Reuters, since the social media site refused to obey orders to censor “fake news” and “hate speech.”
Brazil’s conservative political party, Partido Novo, sought a court injunction against the ban on X, arguing the ban was unconstitutional.
According to business magazine Inc, only one of the two panels of the Supreme Court supported Moraes’ decision.
Constitutional lawyer Vera Chemim stated, “Such a controversial issue should have been debated by all 11 justices, not just by half of them.”
Federal prosecutor Jonathan Mariano, who is also a city council candidate for the Partido Novo, said the case “is about freedom of expression–we want X back to normal in Brazil.”
As CatholicVote previously reported, Moraes’s ban of X caused international outrage, and the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International called on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to intervene.
ADF’s letter pointed out other recent examples of censorship in Brazil, including the targeting of pro-life voices who opposed now-President Lula da Silva’s pro-abortion campaign during the 2022 presidential election.
Brazil also blocked messages that criticized the president’s “promotion of sexually explicit content in school curricula,” according to an ADF press release.
The ADF letter to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission described the censorship issue as “severe.”
Brazil’s current administration has also launched secret criminal investigations against Brazilian journalist Paulo Figueiredo and American author Michael Shellenberger for reporting on the censorship in the country, ADF related.
