Elon Musk Defies Brazil Court Ruling to Block Top X Accounts, Vows to Expose Gov’t Censorship

Elon Musk said he won’t adhere to a Brazilian court’s order to block prominent X accounts and that he plans publish censorship demands from the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil’s Alexandre de Moraes.

“Coming shortly, X will publish everything Alexandre de Moraes demanded by and how those requests violate Brazilian law. This judge has brazenly and repeatedly betrayed the constitution and people of Brazil. He should resign or be impeached,” Musk wrote Sunday on X.

Coming shortly, 𝕏 will publish everything demanded by @Alexandre and how those requests violate Brazilian law.

This judge has brazenly and repeatedly betrayed the constitution and people of Brazil. He should resign or be impeached.

Shame @Alexandre, shame.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 7, 2024

The X owner’s announcement comes after the platform’s Global Government Affairs account posted about popular accounts being banned on the social platform Saturday.

X Corp. has been forced by court decisions to block certain popular accounts in Brazil. We have informed those accounts that we have taken this action.

We do not know the reasons these blocking orders have been issued.

We do not know which posts are alleged to violate the…

— Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) April 6, 2024

In an earlier post, Musk said X would lift all the restrictions decided by Judge Moraes on certain undisclosed accounts in Brazil.

“This judge has applied massive fines, threatened to arrest our employees and cut off access to X in Brazil,” Musk posted Saturday. “As a result, we will probably lose all revenue in Brazil and have to shut down our office there. But principles matter more than profit.”

We are lifting all restrictions. This judge has applied massive fines, threatened to arrest our employees and cut off access to 𝕏 in Brazil.

As a result, we will probably lose all revenue in Brazil and have to shut down our office there.

But principles matter more than…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 6, 2024

Twitter Files journalist and censorship expert Michael Shellenberger broke down the unfolding situation as Brazil’s own “Twitter Files” censorship saga.

“At any moment, Brazil’s Supreme Court could shut off all access to X/Twitter for the people of Brazil. It is not an exaggeration to say that Brazil is on the brink of dictatorship at the hands of a totalitarian Supreme Court Justice named Alexandre de Moraes,” he wrote Saturday.

BRAZIL IS ON THE BRINK

I’m reporting to you from Brazil, where a dramatic series of events are underway.

At 5:52 pm Eastern Time, today, April 6, 2024, X corporation, formerly known as Twitter, announced that a Brazilian court had forced it to “block certain popular accounts in… pic.twitter.com/GjdAgmkCBo

— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) April 7, 2024

He continued:

President Lula da Silva is participating in the push toward totalitarianism. Since taking office, Lula has massively increased government funding of the mainstream news media, most of which are encouraging increased censorship.

What Lula and de Moraes are doing is an outrageous violation of Brazil’s constitution and the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.

At this moment, Brazil is not yet a dictatorship. It still has elections and the Brazilian people have other means at their disposal to confront authoritarianism.

But the Federal Supreme Court and the Superior Electoral Court are directly interfere in those elections through censorship.

Three days ago I published the Twitter Files for Brazil. They show that Moraes has violated the Brazilian Constitution. Moraes illegally demanded that Twitter reveal private information about Twitter users who used hashtags he considered inappropriate. He demanded access to Twitter’s internal data, violating the platform’s policy. He censored, on his own initiative and without any respect for due process, posts on Twitter by parliamentarians from the Brazilian Congress. And Moraes tried to turn Twitter’s content moderation policies into a weapon against supporters of then-president Jair Bolsonaro.

“This is all accurate,” Musk said of Shellenberger’s reporting.

There’s seems to be a pattern here: anytime a far-left government takes over, a mass censorship crackdown seems to follow.

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