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🇺🇸🇧🇷U.S: WE ARE MONITORING 𝕏 BRAZIL ESCALATION "The US Embassy is monitoring the situation between the Supreme Court and the X platform. We emphasize that freedom of expression is a fundamental pillar in a healthy democracy." Source: @SamPancher x.com/metropoles/sta…

Glenn Greenwald Rants About Brazil's Alexandre De Moraes' Authoritarian Censorship Regime Citing The New York Times "The Brazilian left hated him until he took on the role of chief censor and began censoring, apparently, almost everybody who the Brazilian left regarded as their enemy." "Especially, Bolsanaro supporters. Including ordering members of Congress arrested and journalists having their homes searched and seized, and now he's a hero to the Brazilian left." "If you question this judge, you will be called a defender of fascism even though what this judge is most known for is this very extreme censorship regime that was even a bridge too far for the New York Times." "Mr. Moraes has jailed five people without a trial for posts on social media that he said attacked Brazil's institutions. He didn't order them censored. He ordered them jailed with no trial." "The only time in my entire career as a journalist that I have ever wondered if I should really be questioning, challenging, or critiquing a political official is this person, who has gone so far as to order people to be imprisoned without a trial for criticizing him." "If you criticize Alexandre De Moraes, you get banned or perhaps imprisoned, which is why I spent every second up until this show started on the phone with my lawyers." "Alexandre De Moraes is the target of people's criticism, so in his view, he's the victim of people's illegal speech. He then initiates his own legal process to get these people arrested or censored, and then he sits as the judge in his own case—a case that he himself initiated. A case that he considers himself the victim. Then, he judges these people guilty and orders them to be arrested or banned from the internet." "Do you know how repressive a censorship regime has to be for the New York Times to write an article like this? Regardless of how authoritarian or repressive you think Bolsanaro is, the institutions acting against him, in particular this Supreme Court, have become more repressive." The full episode with @ggreenwald is below.

BRAZIL IS ON THE BRINK I’m reporting to you from Brazil, where a dramatic series of events are underway. At 5:52 pm Eastern Time, today, April 6, 2024, X corporation, formerly known as Twitter, announced that a Brazilian court had forced it to “block certain popular accounts in Brazil.” Then, less than one hour later, the owner of X, @ElonMusk announced that X would defy the court’s order, and lift all restrictions. “As a result,” said Musk, “we will probably lose all revenue in Brazil and have to shut down our office there. But principles matter more than profit.” At any moment, Brazil’s Supreme Court could shut off all access to X/Twitter for the people of Brazil. It is not an exaggeration to say that Brazil is on the brink of dictatorship at the hands of a totalitarian Supreme Court Justice named Alexandre de Moraes. President Lula da Silva is participating in the push toward totalitarianism. Since taking office, Lula has massively increased government funding of the mainstream news media, most of which are encouraging increased censorship. What Lula and de Moraes are doing is an outrageous violation of Brazil’s constitution and the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. At this moment, Brazil is not yet a dictatorship. It still has elections and the Brazilian people have other means at their disposal to confront authoritarianism. But the Federal Supreme Court and the Superior Electoral Court are directly interfere in those elections through censorship. Three days ago I published the Twitter Files for Brazil. They show that Moraes has violated the Brazilian Constitution. Moraes illegally demanded that Twitter reveal private information about Twitter users who used hashtags he considered inappropriate. He demanded access to Twitter's internal data, violating the platform's policy. He censored, on his own initiative and without any respect for due process, posts on Twitter by parliamentarians from the Brazilian Congress. And Moraes tried to turn Twitter's content moderation policies into a weapon against supporters of then-president Jair Bolsonaro. I say this as an independent and non-partisan journalist. I'm not a fan of either Bolsonaro or Trump. My political views are very moderate. But I know censorship when I see it. The Twitter Files also revealed that Google, Facebook, Uber, WhatsApp and Instagram betrayed the people of Brazil. If such evidence is proven, the executives of these companies behaved like cowards: they provided the Brazilian government with personal registration data and telephone numbers without a court order and, therefore, violating the law. When Twitter refused to provide Brazilian authorities with private user information, including direct messages, the government attempted to sue Twitter's top Brazilian lawyer. When I lived in Brazil in 1992, I was very left-wing. At the time, Lula and the PT's slogans were “Without fear of being happy”. In recent days, I have spoken to dozens of Brazilians, including professors, journalists and respected lawyers. Everyone tells me they are shocked by what is happening. They told me that they are afraid to speak their mind and that the Lula government is complicit in creating this climate of fear. Brazil belongs to the Brazilians. It is not my country. As such, there are limits to what I am capable of doing. But I can say things that many Brazilians do not feel safe saying: Alexandre de Moraes is a tyrant. And the only way to deal with tyrants is to confront them. It is up to Brazil’s senators to confront the tyrant. And it is up to the people of Brazil to demand that their senators do so.