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X closes shop in Brazil over judge’s demands: ‘He’s an utter disgrace to justice’

August 18, 2024 | | Print Article

Elon Musk’s fight for free speech took a turn in Brazil as alleged “illegal” demands from an “utter disgrace to justice” forced the tech entrepreneur’s hand.

Across the world, totalitarian globalists have demonstrated their uncompromising pursuit to control the flow of information and dictate what opinions are permissible. Musk’s free speech absolutism has routinely been tried by such diktats and Saturday he proved himself stalwart in his stated objectives as a threats from Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes were met with the decision to shutter operations in the South American nation.

“Due to demands by ‘Justice’ @Alexandre in Brazil that would require us to break (in secret) Brazilian, Argentinian, American and international law, X has no choice but to close our local operations in Brazil. He is an utter disgrace to justice,” posted the SpaceX founder and CEO in response to an announcement from X’s Global Government Affairs team.

“Last night, Alexandre de Moraes threatened our legal representative in Brazil with arrest if we do not comply with his censorship orders. He did so in a secret order, which we share here to expose his actions,” the detailed before asserting of the judge, “His actions are incompatible with democratic government. The people of Brazil have a choice to make — democracy, or Alexandre de Moraes.”

Earlier this year, Musk had reported moving X staff in Brazil to a safe location after being faced with a criminal probe for alleged “fake news” and threats of seeing the platform completely shut down in the country. In addition to threats of arrest, fines had been imposed and the billionaire had acknowledged the likelihood that the office would be closed as he declared, “But principles matter more than profit.”

In a follow up post on the decision, viewed nearly 53 million times as of publishing, Musk elaborated, “The decision to close the X office in Brazil was difficult, but, if we had agreed to @alexandre’s (illegal) secret censorship and private information handover demands, there was no way we could explain our actions without being ashamed.”

The latest move to preserve free speech came as European Union commissioner Thierry Breton had threatened Musk over his streamed conversation with former President Donald Trump, warning any breaches to the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) would be met with a response that made “full use of our toolbox.”

As part of his response telling Breton where he could put his threats, as the UK had sought to extradite people for social media posts as part of their own crackdown, Musk simply said, “Bonjour!”

It also came as X had filed an antitrust lawsuit against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media and its key members for, as X CEO Linda Yaccarino put it, having the ability to “monopolize what get monetized.”

Referencing a report from the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee that noted, “that their investigation had found evidence of an illegal boycott against many companies, including X,” to “target disfavored platforms, content creators, and news organizations in an effort to demonetize and, in effect, limit certain choices for consumers,” Yaccarino stated, “This behavior is a stain on a great industry, and cannot be allowed to continue.”

Before having a little fun at the expense of de Moraes’ appearance and a likeness to a particular character from the Harry Potter series, the world’s richest man was offered an invitation by Brazilian legislator Nikolas Ferreira to participate in demanding for the impeachment of de Moraes on Sept. 7.

Meanwhile, Musk responded affirmatively to a comment from the DogeDesigner account that wrote, “This is a battle for the future of civilization. If free speech is lost, tyranny is all that lies ahead.”

Kevin Haggerty
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