Brazil’s Supreme Court lifted the ban on X, formerly known as Twitter, after the platform paid out $5.2 million in fines for spreading disinformation. Brazil’s sudden ban on the social media platform should act as a warning to the rest of the world that governments are prepared and ready to silence the freedom of speech without a second’s notice.
Justice de Moraes was particularly concerned that X CEO Elon Musk was hesitant to ban accounts deemed offensive by Brazilian authorities. He attempted to freeze all of Elon Musk’s businesses in Brazil from X to SpaceX. Musk closed X’s Brazilian office in response, and accused Justice de Moraes of being a “criminal of worst kind masquer as a judge,” for attempting to stifle free speech.
Musk said that he would use SpaceX to provide free internet service to all Brazilians impacted by the ban. In response, the Brazilian government froze all of Starlink’s finances. The government even considered confiscating those frozen funds and using them to pay X’s fines. So even a man as powerful as Elon Musk who has both the ability to provide internet AND a free social media platform was banished by government.
Why not use a VPN? Well, the government was willing to bankrupt anyone who attempted to access the website by threatening them with a $9,000 DAILY fine. Brazil’s National Telecommunications Agency forced Apply and Google to prevent Android and iOS users from accessing X.
Now, Brazilians compose the sixth-largest market for X with over 21.5 million users. Losing Brazil was a huge loss for the platform. Musk eventually agreed to pay $5.2 million in fines to Brazilian government and will begin to block individual accounts – he was forced to cave.
Governments will “lose control” is free speech on social media is permitted, as Hillary Clinton said. This is a global phenomenon and every platform has been infiltrated by governments. Expect authorities to continue asking for more control over these platforms as they cannot risk the people questioning the mainstream media’s narrative.