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Elon Musk, who calls himself an absolute advocate of freedom of speech, actually has a mixed reputation in this area.
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But in his ongoing public feud with Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes, Musk does have a point.
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Moraes has taken a more extreme stance on moderation than other Democratic leaders.
Even a broken clock is correct twice a day.
Billionaire businessman and owner of X, Elon Musk, a self-proclaimed advocate of free speech, has been embroiled in a public dispute with Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes for months over concerns about content moderation.
But this time, Musk may have a point, despite his poor track record of living up to the values he espouses, including his effortless compliance with the increasingly authoritarian orders of India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.
The battle between Musk and Moraes revolves around government requests to ban social media accounts linked to extremist groups that run disinformation campaigns in favor of Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s ousted far-right president.
Musk has repeatedly refused to comply with Moraes’ orders to remove accounts affiliated with the “digital militias” that the Justice Department is targeting as part of its anti-disinformation task force. Musk has also, in violation of Brazilian law, refused to appoint a legal representative to handle government requests to remove content from the site.
In response, De Moraes imposed millions of dollars in fines on X, blocked access to the site nationwide, announced plans to fine Brazilians who attempted to access the app through VPNs, and threatened a local X employee with jail time.
Despite Musk being far from a perfect avatar for free speech issues, the Brazilian judge has taken a more extreme stance on tackling disinformation than other democratic leaders, a stance that critics say borders on outright censorship.
Veridiana Alimonti, a Brazil-based expert with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Bloomberg that by international standards of freedom of expression, it is “problematic” to block access to an entire platform, especially if it hosts both legal and illegal expression.
“I no longer post on X myself, and I won’t be sad to see it go,” tech journalist Casey Newton wrote in his Platformer newsletter. “But whatever role the 140 X accounts in question in Brazil played in threatening Brazilian democracy, they may not have threatened it more than silencing the 20 million Brazilians who use it regularly.”
Musk’s questionable freedom of speech
After Musk bought Twitter in 2022, he quickly reduced moderation on the platform and reinstated accounts that had once been blocked for spreading false information, such as those of former President Donald Trump and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, in the name of free speech.
He was recently one of the first social media moguls to defend Telegraph founder Pavel Durov when French police arrested Durov last month, in part for refusing to more rigorously moderate content on his messaging app.
Musk’s commitment to freedom of speech, however, is flawed, if not downright hypocritical.
Tesla’s CEO has banned parody accounts that impersonated him and threatened to sue bloggers who were critical of him and his companies. He has also fired employees who disagreed with him.
Perhaps even worse, at least in the context of his fight in Brazil, Musk said last year that he had no “real choice” but to comply with government requests to restrict content in Turkey and India — both large democracies that have become more autocratic in recent years. One analysis by El Pais estimated that under his leadership, X complied with 83% of requests from authoritarian governments to remove content.
Though his history on the issue is inconsistent, Musk has carved out a central role for himself in the global conversation about censorship, content moderation and freedom of speech, in part by engaging in fights like the one in Brazil.
The battle in Brazil
In Brazil, the battle for Musk really got intense.
In addition to fining X over $3 million and threatening the company’s employees with jail time, which led to the closure of X’s office in Brazil, De Moraes also targeted Musk’s other business ventures in the country.
A Brazilian judge has temporarily frozen the financial accounts of Starlink, a subsidiary of Musk’s company SpaceX that provides internet connectivity through its satellite network, to collect fines for X.
When Starlink refused to comply with orders to block access to X in the country, Brazilian telecom regulators considered imposing sanctions on the company and revoking its license.
Starlink relented and eventually gave in to legal demands to block X in Brazil, but Musk is not giving up.
Musk argues in memes
For now, Musk appears to be defending freedom of speech (and X’s presence in Brazil) by publicly attacking De Moraes.
In a series of recent posts on X, Musk has questioned de Moraes’ credibility and political motives, calling him “an evil dictator masquerading as a judge” and accusing the judiciary of “engaging in serious, repeated and deliberate interference” in Brazil’s last presidential election, in which voters elected leftist politician Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva over Bolsonaro.
He also shared images of the Moraes alongside Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter series and suggested that the judge should be put behind bars.
These attacks could ultimately backfire on Musk and his companies.
His decision not to appeal De Moraes’s orders (and instead turn the topic into an online meme battle) has spread some 20 million active Brazilian X users across new platforms including Bluesky and Threads.
“Where this goes from here really depends on Elon Musk. I think if Elon Musk decides to get involved, as he eventually did in India, then X could come back,” Mariana Valente, a law professor and director of Brazilian think tank InternetLab, told Bloomberg. “But if Elon Musk doesn’t do something differently, I think X or Twitter will be blocked in Brazil for a long time.”
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