Are you ready to do some heavy reading? Because there are some very long posts in here that are important to the story, which has been percolating for some time. Brazilian Federal Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes is accusing Elon Musk of being part of an international criminal network and fining him $100,000 a day for not taking down accounts the justice wants taken down, including politicians and journalists.
Coming shortly, 𝕏 will publish everything demanded by @Alexandre and how those requests violate Brazilian law.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 7, 2024
This judge has brazenly and repeatedly betrayed the constitution and people of Brazil. He should resign or be impeached.
Shame @Alexandre, shame.
BREAKING! Justice Alexandre de Moraes publishes decision of the Brazilian Supreme Court stating that @elonmusk is part of an intentional criminal network, including the billionaire in an unconstitutional criminal probe (in which I am also under investigation, btw) and even… pic.twitter.com/WgZ3IeywuK
— Paulo Figueiredo Filho (@realpfigueiredo) April 8, 2024
BREAKING! Justice Alexandre de Moraes publishes decision of the Brazilian Supreme Court stating that @elonmusk is part of an intentional criminal network, including the billionaire in an unconstitutional criminal probe (in which I am also under investigation, btw) and even imposes fines and threats to X if they lift the censorship. Understand, we are dealing with an abject despot.
Here is the final pages of De Moraes' decision:
The flagrant conduct of obstruction of Brazilian Justice, incitement to crime, public threat of disobedience to court orders and future lack of cooperation by the platform are facts that disrespect Brazil's sovereignty and reinforce the connection of the INTENTIONAL CRIMINAL INSTRUMENTALIZATION of the activities of the former TWITTER current "X", with the illegal practices investigated by the various investigations previously mentioned, and should be the object of investigation by the Federal Police.
Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes not only instructed X to suspend accounts of journalists and politicians, he demanded that X keep the court order secret and lie that the bans were for violating X’s terms of service. This is tyranny.
— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) April 8, 2024
Recommended
Alexandre de Moraes is an enemy of mankind. pic.twitter.com/xANXIO74S7
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) April 8, 2024
He even looks like a Batman villain.
This is the man that is trying to shut down X and free speech in Brazil. pic.twitter.com/NGGuxkB9sE
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) April 8, 2024
"We kept getting these demands from Judge Alexandre to suspend accounts of sitting members of the parliament and major journalists. We could not tell them that this was at the behest of Alexandre, we had to pretend that it was due to our rules" 🇧🇷
— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) April 8, 2024
一 Elon Musk pic.twitter.com/mfbPZFj7yG
This is the heart of the problem. What say you @Alexandre?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 8, 2024
Let us debate this in the open. https://t.co/E2HsU6Winr
Are you ready to read? Here's investigative journalist and Twitter Files contributor Michael Shellenberger:
Elon Musk Is All That Stands In The Way Of Totalitarianism
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) April 8, 2024
Last night, around 8 p.m. local time in São Paulo, Brazil, Federal Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes announced a criminal investigation into Elon Musk, the owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, for allegedly… pic.twitter.com/cAFkVphWyc
Here's the full post:
Last night, around 8 p.m. local time in São Paulo, Brazil, Federal Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes announced a criminal investigation into Elon Musk, the owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, for allegedly spreading disinformation, obstructing justice, and allowing people who De Moraes had banned from social media to freely express their views. De Moraes said he would fine X twenty thousand dollars per day for every banned person Musk allows to speak.
As such, De Moraes has taken Brazil one step closer to being a dictatorship. What’s more, the events of the last few weeks make clear that Elon Musk is the only thing standing in the way of global totalitarianism. Without free speech, there can be no democracy.
If X goes down, we must continue to fight. We can continue to communicate through email and other social media platforms, such as Facebook.
But email is no substitute for social media platforms' capacity to share information with millions of people. Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of Facebook, abandoned his principled free speech position in 2020 after three years of relentless pressure from activist NGOs, Democrats, and corporate advertisers. Today, Facebook actively represses the spread of news.
The mainstream corporate news media have never been more corrupt and totalitarian. With few exceptions, they spread government propaganda as a matter of policy. Nobody demands censorship more than the corporate media, which benefit from governments shutting down their competitors.
Governments are either not protecting free speech or actively participating in the war upon it.
Last month, the US Supreme Court held a hearing where justices made clear that they were fine with the US government pressuring social media companies to censor. Last week, the Scottish government implemented a law to crack down on so-called hate speech, including jokes by comedians. In Ireland, the government wants the power to send police into people’s homes to search computers and phones for hate speech. In Canada, the governing Liberal party wants the power to send people to prison for life for things they’ve said. And the European Union has empowered a tiny group of bureaucrats to decide what is true and false and engage in mass censorship.
All of this is happening at the very same moment that my colleagues and I have revealed that government intelligence organizations are working through NGOs to interfere in elections by spreading disinformation about populist activists and political candidates. In other words, governments are demanding censorship in order to protect their ability to spread disinformation.
Making matters worse, governments are directly financing corporate news media. The current Brazilian government is spending 30 times more than the previous government on media advertising in order to spread its disinformation.
I never in my life thought I would live to see the rise of totalitarianism in Western countries. A powerful minority of educated elites around the world are demanding the censorship, persecution, and incarceration of their political enemies. Naturally, they are doing so in the name of saving democracy. I am shocked and embarrassed that I used to call many of these totalitarians friends and allies. The only explanation is that they are in the grip of mass psychosis after years of media propaganda and government disinformation falsely claiming that populist political movements are undemocratic.
The fact that the future of free speech rests upon the shoulders of a single individual is not something any of us should want. I do not think that this is a responsibility Elon Musk wants. He would be a far richer person had he never bought Twitter. He would also be living a more peaceful life. After Musk bought Twitter, the Biden administration and the Democratic Party declared war on him. Various government agencies filed multiple frivolous lawsuits against Musk and his companies in ways very similar to the war the Brazilian government is waging against X.
What all of this reveals is that, until Musk bought Twitter, we didn’t really have freedom of expression. The US government felt that it controlled both the corporate news media and social media companies. We saw in the Twitter Files that the FBI orchestrated a disinformation and censorship campaign in order to protect Joe Biden.
Starting with the Cyber Threat Intelligence League, operatives working for the US Department of Defense and the British Ministry of Defense sought to hide their censorship and disinformation efforts as “cyber security.” After that, the US Department of Homeland Security and the Stanford Internet Observatory engaged in a mass censorship effort around the 2020 elections and Covid.
It is today clear that intelligence and security agencies have been working together around the world to gain control over social media platforms in order to discredit, prosecute, and incarcerate populist leaders. The evidence is now overwhelming that the FBI and Secret Service are covering up evidence related to the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot in Washington DC. And there is still much we do not know about the eerily similar riot in Brazil’s capitol on January 8, 2023.
There is much we need to do to fight back....
I say it often...@elonmusk deserves the Nobel Prize for what he's done.
— Hollywood Resistance (@ResistItAllTX) April 8, 2024
𝕏 supports the people of Brazil, without regard to political affiliation.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 8, 2024
Does Judge @Alexandre? https://t.co/m2FVOvoyNv
Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald lives in Brazil:
"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."
Musk remains defiant, refusing to suspend the "criminals" named by De Moraes.
US Supreme Court Justice Kentaji Brown: I'm worried that the First Amendment is preventing the government from censoring speech as it sees fit.
— Locke & Loaded (@80sLocke) April 8, 2024
Brazil: Hold my beer.
We cannot let this spread. It has to stop in Brazil. The people of Brazil need to stand up to authoritarianism!
— The Science (@PentecostJesse) April 8, 2024
Now you know why the left went into complete meltdown when @elonmusk bought twitter (@X) in the first place.
— EnforceTheTruth (@EnforceTheTruth) April 8, 2024
They lost control of the narrative and they want it back.
When they can no longer control the narrative, they resort to FORCE, Elon Musk is already the man of the year in my books
— Claude (@Makelelekan_04) April 8, 2024
Shocking advances in totalitarianism
— Harold Madsen (@haroldMadsen9) April 9, 2024
In the meantime, Musk advises Brazilians to use a VPN, although de Moraes has threatened to fine anyone who does so to get around a block.
Using a VPN is very easy https://t.co/vWcCRn3S5J
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 7, 2024
This can't work in 2024. We say no to tyranny
— Odogwu Anioma (@jidifeanyi) April 9, 2024
Musk buying Twitter was one of the most substantial actions of the last decade.
***
Join the conversation as a VIP Member