Brazil has opened an investigation into Elon Musk for possible obstruction of justice after the owner of x said he reactivated accounts on the social media platform that Brazil had ordered blocked from the platform.
The investigation opened by Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes on Sunday follows a series of heated interactions between Musk and the Brazilian government. On Saturday, twitter.com/GlobalAffairs/status/1776729732970594483″>x Global Government Affairs Team Announced that “judicial decisions” had forced the platform to block “certain popular accounts” in Brazil and would face daily fines (up to $20,000, x-supreme-court-investigation-a645757b95a66ee658832802908466ab”>according The Associated Press) if he did not comply.
“We are prohibited from saying which court or judge issued the order, or for what reasons,” the affairs team said. “We believe that such orders are not in accordance with the Marco Civil da Internet or the Federal Constitution of Brazil, and we challenge them legally whenever possible.”
Heading Brazil's top electoral court, Judge de Moraes has advocated removing anti-democratic content posted online in the wake of far-right rioters who attacked government buildings. on January 8 of last year. The Brazilian judiciary said that misinformation is “a singular threat to Latin America's largest country,” having led several crackdowns on hate speech, incitement and fake news after the attack.
It is unclear whether the order for However, the platform has become a hotbed of misinformation and other harmful rhetoric since Musk bought it in 2022, and the European Union recently criticized x for failing to effectively moderate fake news about the war between Israel and Hamas.
“We cannot live in a society in which billionaires residing abroad have control of social networks and put themselves in a position to violate the rule of law”
The order and subsequent investigation into Musk come as Brazil calls for an “urgent” approach to social media regulation. “We cannot live in a society in which billionaires domiciled abroad have control of social networks and put themselves in a position to violate the rule of law, failing to comply with court orders and threatening our authorities,” said Brazil's attorney general. , Jorge Messias. twitter.com/jorgemessiasagu/status/1776760509842210957″>posted in x on Saturday, apparently targeting Musk. “Social peace is not negotiable.”
While positioning himself as a fervent defender of freedom of expression, Musk has said several times that he will respect the rule of law when necessary. In an interview with Don Lemon last month, Musk said that x has a “responsibility to comply with the law” and would remove illegal content. Last April, twitter-has-complied-with-almost-every-government-request-for-censorship-since-musk-took-over-report-finds/”>Forbes reported that x has fully complied with more than 80 percent of the government's censorship requests, compared to about 50 percent that were accepted before Musk took over the company.
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