David Inserra
David Inserra
On August 31, Brazil’s judiciary blocked X from being available in the country due to X’s refusal to secretly censor important political content. This includes content from accounts outside Brazil and even sitting legislators. More radically, the rogue justice Alexandre Moraes ordered app stores to block various virtual private networks (VPNs) and created a brand new penalty for Brazilians who managed to access X through a VPN.
While the original order to block VPNs was rescinded, a panel of the Brazilian Supreme Court upheld the banning of X and the new fine. At around $9,000, the fine is approximately equal to the income of the average Brazilian. The Brazilian court obviously holds X responsible for its failure to obey their censorial orders. But levying such a punishing fine on Brazilians for merely speaking their mind online shows how far authoritarians must go to effectively ban a speech platform.
Brazil’s judiciary didn’t stop there. Moraes also froze the bank accounts of Starlink, the company dedicated to providing internet via satellite. Since Elon Musk had closed X’s Brazilian office, Moraes felt it necessary to go after one of Musk’s other unrelated companies. It’s bad enough to see legal authorities plundering other companies to satisfy their grudge against Musk, but to make matters worse Starlink isn’t completely owned by Musk. He owns about half of Starlink, which means that Brazilian authorities are also going after the half of the company that belongs to other investors.
In response, Starlink initially refused to block X on its internet services, before eventually capitulating to Brazilian demands. Had Starlink refused, Brazil’s authorities could have banned Starlink and its service to over a quarter-million Brazilians. While Brazil’s authoritarians can’t quite get their hands on Starlinks’s satellites, they could have tried to seize the ground terminals in a move that would have significantly harmed internet availability in Brazil, » Read More
https://www.cato.org/blog/brazils-judicial-authoritarians-ban-x-punish-their-citizens-threaten-american-investors-where