Elon Musk and court justice spar over freedom of speech in Brazil

When Brazilian Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered X to remove users from its social media platform, Elon Musk called it censorship. 

Those users are allies of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who have actively shared fake news online. Musk refused and instead pulled his team out of Brazil. His app X still works in the country.

“Elon Musk is a businessman, and like all businessmen, he doesn’t want to see his business regulated,” said Fabio de Sa e Silva, a Brazilian legal expert and a professor at the University of Oklahoma. “And this is what the Brazilian judiciary is doing indirectly to the extent that Mr. Musk’s platform is hosting speech contrary to Brazilian law in different ways, and the judiciary is pushing back against that.”

It’s part of a battle that’s playing out in Brazil and around the world: Does free speech include the right to spread hate and misinformation? 

“There is certainly tighter regulation of political speech in Brazil than in the US,” Sa e Silva said. “Just like there’s tighter regulation of political speech in Germany than in the US. In Germany, you cannot advocate for Nazi ideas. And nobody questions Germany and interrogates whether Germany is a democracy because it imposes those limitations on political speech.”

But in Brazil, allies of Bolsonaro are questioning the country’s democratic credentials. And they are rallying for a more absolutist US-style protection of the freedom of expression. 

Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes has become their enemy No. 1. Moraes has long been the man leading the charge against fake news and hate speech in Brazil.

“The Brazilian people know that freedom of speech is not freedom of aggression,” he said in a televised interview earlier this year. “They know that the freedom of speech is not the freedom to spread hate, racism, misogyny and homophobia.”

In recent years, he has ordered raids on homes and jailings of Bolsonaro allies who have attacked the Supreme Court and participated in fake news schemes. He’s actively ordered the removal of posts and accounts on Twitter that have spread fake news.

At the right-wing CPAC Brazil summit in July, Bolsonaro supporters called for Moraes’ removal from the court.

“For our democracy and the freedom of expression, rooted in the constitution, we call for the impeachment of the abuser Supreme Court Justice,” said one staunch Bolsonaro ally on stage. 

An online petition calling for Moraes’ impeachment now has over 1 million signatures.

This comes as the Brazil-based, US investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald has released a series of reports based on leaks that he claims show Moraes acted illegally while overseeing both the country’s Supreme Court and the Electoral Court. He spoke about this last week on his online show, System Update.

“About behavior that Alexandre de Moraes has engaged in that is now being very intensely debated about its propriety and legality.” 

Justices like Moraes can wield substantial power. But every expert interviewed for this story agreed: Moraes didn’t do anything illegal or impeachable.

Santa Catarina Federal University journalism professor Rogerio Christofoletti said it’s no coincidence that these attacks and allegations against Moraes are happening now.

“They are being used by the extreme right to weaken the Supreme Court as Brazil is just about to begin the campaigns for this year’s regional elections,” he said. “We will have 5,570 Brazilian municipalities choosing their mayors and city councilors. So, weakening the laws at this moment is of interest to parties that want to grab more power and attacking the judiciary is part of the far-right’s global playbook.”

University of Virginia media professor David Nemer said that Musk is taking an increasingly active interest in Brazil, partly because he’s found a like-minded agenda with right-wing politicians in the country.

“The Brazilian politicians have a very specific interest in keeping [X] the way it is,” he said. “They prevail because of misinformation. They prevail because of hate speech that they promote. And in Brazil, that’s not allowed. So, they need a platform to create this sort of engagement and build their base. So, it’s like a win-win situation for both of them.”

Nemer said that Brazil is one of the largest social media markets in the world. And unlike China or Europe, Musk believes he can have a real impact there, be it on social media or in the upcoming elections later this year.