Brazilians feel impact of social media blackout after Supreme Court bans X platform

Brazilians began to feel disconnected on Saturday after their country’s Supreme Court blocked the X social media platform, the latest development in an ongoing showdown between CEO Elon Musk and the South American country’s judicial system.

The conflict began when the Court opened an investigation into Musk and later ordered him to suspend specific accounts it considered to be in violation of Brazilian law. When Musk refused to shut those accounts down in the name of free speech, the Court threatened to order arrests of X employees and Musk instructed his employees to vacate their office—a move that resulted in X losing its physical presence in the country.

Without a physical presence in Brazil, the Court now says the social media company forfeited its right to operate there and ordered its telecom agency to block access to its online network.

The showdown between Musk and Brazil’s highest court is quickly gaining world attention as millions wait in anticipation to see if the Tesla and SpaceX founder will stand his ground as a free speech absolutist.

Musk has since struggled to find alternative options as a detour around the court order, using SpaceX's Starlink satellite-internet subsidiary to provide service to about a quarter million users in Brazil.

Court ordered fines against X, Starlink, and Brazilians who use VPNs to access the X platform

Starlink has also become a target, as Brazilian Supreme Court Chief Justice Alexandre de Moraes has also frozen its accounts as a means of collecting $3 million in fines against Musk’s enterprises.

Musk isn’t the only one facing fines. Some celebrities and their fans were also impacted as a result of Brazilians being silenced on the platform.

“Wait a lot of my fan pages are Brazilian!!! Come back hold up!!,” Cardi B said Friday on X.

A fan page dedicated to Timothée Chalamet, known by the handle TimotheeUpdates, also said it would temporarily lose the ability to update its account because all of its administrators are in the South American country. 

Justice Moraes has ruled that any person in Brazil who tried to still use the social media platform with a virtual private network (VPN) could be fined daily 50,000 reais, which equals almost $9,000 a day.

Some legal experts questioned the grounds for that decision, suggesting the move was Orwellian.

“I’ve used VPNs a lot in authoritarian countries like China to continue accessing news sites and social networks,” Maurício Santoro, a political science professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, wrote on X before it was shut down.

“It never occurred to me that this type of tool would be banned in Brazil. It’s dystopian.”

Lost profits and revenues for Elon Musk and X

Apart from fines, the Court’s hardline has also resulting in a significant loss of profits and revenue for Musk.

According to Appfigures, Brazil ranks as the fourth largest user of the app since Musk bough the platform in 2022, with more than 25 million downloads. With the app shut down, Musk will most likely lose advertising dollars that pay to target the large South American country that has a population of more than 212 million.

“Bluesky is now the most popular app in the App Store in Brazil following X’s ban. Happened overnight. Let’s see how long it’ll stay there,” Appfigures reported in an Aug. 31 post published on the platform.

The advertising revenue gap could take its toll on the company since Musk has struggled to seek replacement revenue in international markets as a result of U.S. advertisers effectively boycotting the platform over its position on absolute free speech.

Showdown: Censorship or combating disinformation?

Musk has suggested that the Brazilian Supreme Court is politically targeting and censoring conservatives while Justice Moraes has asserted that the X platform CEO is hampering the government’s mission of shielding the Brazilian internet of disinformation.

To that end, Moraes has ordered X to remove at least 140 accounts, most of them controlled by conservatives, including some of the country’s most renowned right wing The disinformation label arose mainly because many of those accounts have raised challenges and concerns about the 2022 election results that determined left wing president Luíz Inacio Lula da Silva defeated then conservative incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.

Some of the accounts have also offered sympathy for the protestors who broke in and trashed Brazil’s Supreme Court and Congress on Jan. 8, 2022 during a massive riot.

Still, Musk asserts those positions are valid and belong in the marketplace of ideas without being censored or regulated.

“Free speech is the bedrock of democracy and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes,” Musk said on Friday.

The chief justice in turn, has called Musk an “outlaw” who facilitated circumstances that “allow the massive spread of disinformation, hate speech and attacks on the democratic rule of law, violating the free choice of the electorate, by keeping voters away from real and accurate information.”

While Musk has depicted himself as a free speech champion, he has acquiesced to orders in other foreign countries to remove links that were critical of those governments.

Since he took over the social media platform he removed links, Musk complied with the Indian government’s orders to remove accounts and links to a BBC documentary that was critical of its prime minister, Narendra Modi.

He has also resisted orders as he is in Brazil in countries like Australia where he challenged a court order to remove videos capturing images of a violent attack against a Catholic bishop.

Some say however, that he has never faced a challenge as great as the one he is now staring down in Brazil.

“Few people have had a larger singular impact on what is said online in recent years than the Brazilian judge. He has emerged as one of Brazil’s most powerful — and polarizing — figures after the country’s Supreme Court enshrined him with expansive powers to crack down on threats to democracy online, amid fears about a far-right movement led by Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s former president,” says The New York Times in an Aug. 30 report.

“Ahead of Brazil’s 2022 election, the court empowered Justice Moraes to unilaterally order the takedown of accounts he deemed threats. He has since wielded that power liberally, often in sealed orders that do not disclose why a given account was suspended,” the report says.

In fact, an earlier Jan. 22, 2023 article published by The New York Times, was titled: “He is Brazil’s Defender of Democracy. Is He Good for Democracy?” posing the subtitle, “Alexandre de Moraes, a Brazilian Supreme Court justice, was crucial to Brazil’s transfer of power. But his aggressive tactics are prompting debate: Can one go too far to fight the far right?”

The article reported that in the wake of Brazil’s Jan. 8 riots, “Using a broad interpretation of the court’s powers, he has pushed to investigate and prosecute, as well as to silence on social media, anyone he deems a menace to Brazil’s institutions.”

Chief Justice Alexandre de Moraes and the court of public opinion

Moraes was the judge who ruled former President Bolsonaro was ineligible to run again for political office in the next presidential election, making him an admired figure on the left while being vilified on the right.

While Moraes may have sweeping judicial powers in the Brazilian court system, some say he is losing in the battle in the court of public opinion, and Musk is gaining popularity.

“He [Musk] might be losing money in the short term, but he’s gaining enormous political capital,” Brazilian FGV Law School Professor Luca Belli told the Times after closely monitoring the situation.  

Some members of Congress who are being targeted by the order have also spoken out against the chief justice’s move

“Tyrants want to turn Brazil into another commie dictatorship but we won’t back down. I repeat: do not vote on those who don’t respect free speech. Orwell was right,” conservative congressman and Bolsonaro ally Nikolas Ferreira wrote on X before it was shut down.

Musk replied with an emoji suggesting agreement: “100”. 

Moraes may be facing even more battles than his popularity in the court of public opinion.

In a statement released Friday, the Order of Attorneys of Brazil (Brazilian Bar Association) said it would ask the Supreme Court to reconsider the fines it imposed on those citizens using VPNs or other means to access X without due process.

The judicial enforcement agency argued that the fines should not have been imposed summarily without people having a right to defend themselves in some kind of proceeding.

An Associated Press report on Saturday cited a Friday report that “showed hundreds of Brazilian users inquiring about VPNs that could potentially enable them to continue using the platform by making it appear they are logging on from outside the country.”

For his part, Musk has made his position clear to Brazilians who are now wrangling with which side to choose in the ongoing showdown.

“The people of Brazil have a choice to make — democracy, or Alexandre de Moraes,” X wrote when announcing the move.