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CV NEWS FEED // Now that the national elections have been concluded in Brazil, social media platform X has been allowed back online in the country.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who controversially banned the platform in August in a move that was internationally denounced as government censorship of free speech, has lifted the ban after 39 days.
De Moraes alleged the ban was to prevent “misinformation” and “hate speech” in the immediate run-up to the country’s national elections. Free speech advocacy legal group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International denounced the online censorship as “a breach of human rights” and filed a petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
ADF International is representing five Brazilian legislators, who were prevented from effectively communicating with millions of constituents going into the national election.
The legislators allege that the Brazilian government has engaged in serious violations of their free speech rights since 2019, culminating in the recent censorship and banning of X from the internet during an election cycle.
Commenting on the lifting of the ban on X, Tomas Henriquez, ADF International’s director of advocacy for Latin America, said, “That people can freely exchange ideas is a good thing. In that sense, that X is back online in Brazil is good, though let’s not forget that de Moraes’s demands were and remain unlawful.”
Henriquez pointed out that the lifting of the ban is only taking place after the elections. “De Moraes is only now agreeing to lift the blockade, after the elections are over,” Henriquez said. “Censorship has been a persistent and escalating problem in Brazil since 2019. We will continue to make the case that the actions of de Moraes and the greater climate of censorship are unacceptable, until the day that freedom of expression and information are once again secured for all in Brazil.”
X was allowed to operate again in Brazil only after Elon Musk agreed to the high court’s stipulations, including paying a $5 million fine. Brazil’s supreme court announced Tuesday that the company had complied with de Moraes’ conditions, and Brazilians have access again to the platform.
Prior to being shut down in Brazil, Musk slammed de Moraes in an online post as an “evil dictator cosplaying as a judge,” who was targeting X “simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents.”
Musk shut down the platform’s offices in Brazil on August 17 after de Moraes threatened to arrest its legal representative. In an August 30 post on X, Musk again denounced the political censorship, saying, “Free speech is the bedrock of democracy and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes.”
In September, more than 100 global free speech advocates issued an open letter calling for the restoration of free speech in Brazil. Signatories included UK Prime Minister Liz Truss, five US attorneys general, and senior politicians and professors from the US, UK, Europe, and Latin America.
The letter argued that the censorship violated not only Brazil’s laws but also international agreements, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
“This situation extends far beyond Brazil, serving as a striking example of a growing trend of censorship by government officials, who are becoming increasingly aggressive in suppressing speech they find objectionable,” signatories wrote.
“If this censorship in Brazil is allowed to persist, it could set a dangerous precedent that quickly spreads,” they warned, observing that, “recently, other world leaders have expressed pro-censorship sentiments, and there is no quicker path to the demise of democracy than the erosion of free speech.”
