A standoff between Elon Musk and Brazil escalated on Sunday when a Supreme Court judge opened an inquiry into the billionaire after Musk said he would reactivate accounts on the social media platform X that the judge had ordered blocked.
Musk, the owner of X and a self-declared free speech absolutist, has challenged a decision by Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordering the blocking of certain accounts. He has said X, formerly known as Twitter, would lift all the restrictions because they were unconstitutional and called on Moraes to resign.
Neither Musk, X nor Brazilian authorities have disclosed which social media accounts were ordered blocked. X first posted about the order to block on Saturday but it was not immediately clear when the order was issued.
Moraes is investigating "digital militias" that have been accused of spreading fake news and hate messages during the government of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro and is also leading an investigation into an alleged coup attempt by Bolsonaro.
I'm not a Musk fan by any longshot, but does anyone else think that the State having the power to order social media account bans is a bit... excessive?
Note that this is not “just banning someone’s account because they don’t like it”. These are people involved in criminal investigations. Shutting them down is meant to plug their criminal activities so society doesn’t get further damaged by them while the police and judiciary work on actually convicting them.
As an aside: I don’t know why you’re being downvoted. I disagree with your view but your question was asked respectfully and in good faith.
Absolutely not. This is an example of the state doing its job as intended. There is no such thing as an absolute right to free speech and never has been. Absolute free speech would end the human experiment. The real question here is if one human can hoard enough paper power tokens should they be more powerful than nations and unaccountable to nations laws. Musk is asserting the divine right of kings. This supreme court justice is asserting the just power of democracy.
Not really. All extremists should have severely limited platforms to spread their hate in, and who else would see to that, if not democratically elected officials? Even if not democratically elected, I would personally trust almost any even remotely democratic government’s official to enforce something like that than to trust in some edgelord billionaire twat like Musk to do anything other than go the other way and signal boost that extremism instead.
And since I believe this, it would be hypocritical of me to criticize Brazil for this very thing, especially if a far-right populist like Bolsonaro (or anyone Musk likes for that matter) is involved.
But you might hold different views. And fair enough. But I firmly believe we should not give platforms to extremists or traitorous assholes, period. And should work to actively limit that, instead.
I.e I would not like to see, for example, ISIS leaders sharing their beheading videos on any social media platform. By that same logic, I would not like any other kind of extremism there either. I can’t just cherry-pick which kind of extremism I like to be limited and banned. If I believe that there exists entities or influences I would not like to spread, I should accept that those influences exist outside of my personally agreed views of what should be limited.
What happens when people with the opposite political views (Bolsonaro, for example) come to power and label you the extremist that no longer is allowed access to a platform to spread your message?
Just trying to point out that this is the same language and reasoning that, for example, the neofascist regime of Argentina from 1976-1984 used in order to pacify the public for the disappearance and torture of 30,000 people, mostly leftists.
Because they’re infringing the law of that country! In order to operate a business in any country any company must follow the local regulations! Elon Musk does not complain when the Saudi Government orders X to ban anyone for any reason, guess who backs Musk’s companies?
Yes, it's deeply weird that a judge would have that power. It's like forcing a grocery store to ban a customer who's been throwing tomatoes at people, rather than just locking up the tomato-thrower. Why would a judge have the power to punish someone who committed no crime and is just set-dress8ng for a criminal case?
Put another way: why is this judge ordering X to ban the accounts instead of ordering the account holders to delete their accounts?
Because they have fled Brazil so there is no way to force them to delete their accounts. Meanwhile twitter is a business with actual offices in Brazil so they should follow the court orders.
And to the people saying this is ok, is it also okay for china to have accounts banned? Russia, Philippines, brazil, Iran, the US under Trump? Israel? Who gets to decide which countries’ legal systems have this authority?