Brazil v Musk: Judge overreach is first salvo in global battle on free speech, activist says
The showdown between Elon Musk and Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes represents a threat to free speech that could impact other countries if not taken seriously, an activist told Fox News Digital.
"When you have a justice that can say who is able to have a profile or not … this is the big threat that X didn't want to follow," Izabela Patriota, the director of development of the Ladies of Liberty Alliance and head of its Brazil section, argued.
"Now, he's threatening everybody that uses VPN to use the platform," she said. "This is the threat here: Now if they are going to be using another platform, the same thing that happened to X can happen with all of these other platforms."
Musk’s social media platform X refused to comply with an order from de Moraes to ban several accounts – many of which are connected to individuals who took part in the Jan. 8 alleged attempted coup last year. Moraes alleged that these accounts have spread disinformation and represent a threat.
Musk accused the judge of attacking free speech and claimed the order went against the Brazilian constitution. He further alleged in a post on X that the judge had targeted his platform "for political reasons."
Patriota, who has a PhD in Law & Political Economy from the University of São Paulo in Brazil, noted that Moraes made the decision in isolation, but the full court voted to approve the ban. However, Reuters on Thursday reported that Brazilian Justice Kassio Nunes Marques announced the full court would review a challenge to the ban due to the "special repercussions for public and social order."
"At the beginning, this was very much political," Patriota claimed. "Against some people in office and against influencers that are very much aligned with the former president right now … but now, it is impacting day-to-day Brazilians because they do not have access."
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"So many people make money on their profits on [X]," she continued. "[The Justice] said that Brazilians that use VPN would pay a fine of around $9,000 a day if they were using VPN to use [X] after he decided to ban it."
Patriota suggested that some of the other justices would not have ruled as Moraes did, and she revealed that Saturday, which is Brazilian Independence Day, could see widespread protests against the decision.
X remains an immensely popular platform in Brazil, with around 22 million users. Other platforms, such as TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, remain far more popular, but X serves as a major nexus for news agencies and thought leaders, giving the platform an outsize influence, according to The Associated Press.
"Brazil is the biggest country in Latin America, it’s half the GDP of South America … so it influences a lot of the region," Patriota explained.
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"I do believe it can influence the region negatively," she added, noting that many have already moved to other platforms, such as Threads and Bluesky.
The issue continued to grow more complicated when Moraes targeted the internet service Starlink, provided by Musk’s SpaceX, which initially refused to comply with his ban on X.
The justice ordered Starlink-related financial accounts in Brazil frozen, which the company also argued was unconstitutional and "unfounded," but ultimately complied and restricted access to the social media platform.
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Patriota argued, as Musk himself has, that Starlink has no connection to X other than ownership, and that losing access to Starlink would have had a devastating effect on the average Brazilian.
"Where X is just another platform, and so many Brazilians are already migrating to different platforms, Starlink is providing, access to many, many, many communities in the Amazon areas that they wouldn't have without Starlink," Patriota said.