AG Report 9.5.2024

Brazilian Judge Continues Insane Power Trip Against Musk

I’ve been critical at times about Elon Musk’s moves as CEO of X. Specifically, I dislike how his advertising revenue-sharing program has incentivized awful behavior and normalized some truly terrible views. However, what’s been happening in Brazil due to a personal vendetta from unelected Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes is insane and dangerous.

This started when X refused to comply with de Moraes’s apparent order to censor a bunch of accounts. For example, on August 8, he issued a secret order telling X they have 2 hours to secretly close about half a dozen accounts and provide personal information on the owners, including the account of sitting Brazilian Senator Marcos Ribeiro do Val.

The crime that justified this action appears to be due to do Val publicly accusing de Moraes of corruption and abuse of power. When X contested those orders in court, de Moraes threatened their representative until she quit. Then when X didn’t appoint a new representative, he issued a new order suspending the entire platform in Brazil and threatening heavy fines for individuals or companies who use VPNs to circumvent the suspension. Even more outrageous, de Moraes ordered the freezing of the financial assets of Starlink, a completely unrelated Musk company that provides critical internet access to many people in Brazil.

You don’t have to like Musk to understand the dangers of a single judge having this much power over basic freedoms. If he can go after Musk and his related companies like this, then every company that operates in Brazil faces a similar danger.

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