KUALA LUMPUR – Thousands of Brazilians protested against a court ruling to ban social media platform X in several areas in the country today.
Sao Paulo’s main boulevard, crowded for an Independence Day rally, was further congested by demonstrators against the ban on Elon Musk’s platform, AP reported.
According to Bernama, former president Jair Bolsonaro and his son Eduardo, wearing a T-shirt with the X logo against the backdrop of the Brazilian flag, joined the demonstrators who were clad in the yellow-and-green colours of Brazil’s flag.
Meanwhile, in Rio de Janeiro, hundreds of citizens gathered on Copacabana Beach to demand judge Alexandre de Morais resign, said Sputnik.
On August 30, the Supreme Federal Court judge ordered X to be blocked in the country due to Musk’s refusal to appoint a new legal representative for the social network.
In addition, the judge had previously frozen Starlink’s accounts in Brazil for the same reason.
The Supreme Court then upheld Morais’s decision to suspend X. At the same time, Musk emphasised that X and Starlink – which are part of Space X – were two legally different companies, so the Brazilian court’s decision to freeze the latter’s accounts was illegal.
“Alexandre is the emperor of Brazil, and he did not appear yesterday. Censorship, dictatorship did not appear now with the ban on X,” protest participant Laura Piu told Sputnik.
Previously, the judge spearheaded efforts to ban far-right users from spreading misinformation on social media, and he ramped up his clampdown after die-hard Bolsonaro supporters ransacked congress and the presidential palace on January 8, 2023, in an attempt to overturn the former leader’s defeat in the presidential election, stated an AP report.
Yesterday, Bolsonaro called Moraes a “dictator” and called on Brazil’s Senate to impeach the judge. He also repeated the false claim that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had colluded with the judiciary to steal the 2022 election.
“They want to censor the truth, so the people don’t know the truth,” Bolsonaro told the crowd, reported AP.
Musk, who claimed himself to be a “free speech absolutist,” also urged Brazilians to join the rally. He shared someone’s post claiming that the imposed ban awakened people “to the fact that freedom isn’t free and needs to be fought for.”
However, De Moraes’ decision to ban X was not made arbitrarily, as fellow Supreme Court justices also upheld the decision.
Since 2019, X has shut down 226 accounts of far-right activities accused of undermining Brazil’s democracy, including those of lawmakers affiliated with Bolsonaro’s party, according to court records.
When X refused to take action on some accounts, de Moraes warned last month that its legal representative could be arrested, prompting X to disband its local office.
The US-based company refused to name a new representative as required in order to receive court notices, and de Moraes ordered its nationwide suspension until it complied.
However, the Supreme Court panel unanimously upheld de Moraes’ decision to block X days later.
The judge also ruled for a US$9,000 daily fine to be imposed on regular Brazilians using virtual private networks to access X, garnering further controversy. – September 8, 2024