Brazil’s ban of platform X amid Elon Musk’s flight over disinformation on the media site comes with a cautionary message for other democracies trying to balance freedom of expression with information integrity ahead of elections, reported Bloomberg on Saturday, September 7.
There is no easy solution, as the legal system has broad powers to demand the removal of specific posts and accounts, including Brazil. This authority comes with its own challenges, especially the danger of a total ban of the platform, which would fuel charges of censorship and further affect the global internet.
“Even if we look at international standards of freedom of expression, blocking an entire platform is seen as a drastic measure,” said Veridiana Alimonti, a Brazil-based expert with the Electronic Frontier Foundation quoted in the report. “It’s problematic when it involves platforms that host both legal and illegal speech,” she said.
Europe and the United States are not likely to replicate Brazil’s move at a time when governments worldwide are waging similar fights against fake news and hateful content on platform X, according to academics and industry experts quotes in the report. This is owing to the relative lack of legal authority and the political risk of going against the world’s richest man, who’s increasingly aligned himself with right-wing figures and endorsed Republican Donald Trump in the November US election, as per the report.
Musk’s fight against controversial Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes over the order banning platform X escalated an ideological war that has become a cry for the billionaire’s right-leaning allies worldwide. It piqued the confrontation with regulators that Musk had been stoking since he bought the platform in the latter part of 2022 and swiftly remade it into a bastion for content that served his political and social views, according to the report.
The Supreme Court has drawn Elon Musk’s wrath over its inquiry into whether or not the disinformation on social media prompted supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro to storm public buildings on Jan. 8, 2023, following his election defeat, as per the report.
In April, Moraes opened an investigation into whether Musk, who has openly backed Bolsonaro for years, over obstruction of justice and whether X had taken to the illegal influence of public opinion, accusations the billionaire and the company rejected, according to the report.
There should be a discussion about whether Brazil’s high court is overstepping its authority, said Bruna Santos, head of the Wilson Center’s Brazil Institute, cited in the report. She also said that Moraes has “gone too far” multiple times. However, she said that conversation is hard to have at this moment, when questioning Moraes “sounds like you are defending Musk,” said the report.
Adding to the pressure of platform X, its head of global affairs, Nick Pickles, left the company after more than a decade with the social media company. The scrutiny on X has increased since Musk’s 2022 takeover, specially after he fired thousands of people majorly involved in communications and policy disinformation on the platform. An X spokesperson refused to comment immediately but referred a reporter to Pickle’s post late Thursday announcing his departure, according to the report.
Other governments have challenged X with different results. While Musk is standing his ground in Brazil, X has complied with demands to take down content in countries such as India, where posts about farmer protests were singled out for removal earlier this year by the government. This week, X agreed to EU demands to stop processing the personal information of European users to train its artificial-intelligence chatbot Grok, as per the report.
The European Union officials warned X in July against deceiving users into engaging in potentially harmful content, an investigation that could make the way for fines of up to 6 per cent of the company’s revenues, as per the report.
EU is not prepared to deal with a company that refuses to comply, said Christel Schaldemose, the center-left Danish lawmaker who played a key role in passing the DSA through the European Parliament.
“We wanted to use high fines as deterrents — but they don’t seem to bother Musk,” Schaldemose said in the agency report. Over the next two years, she said, the EU should stress-test its regulation and — if needed — strengthen its countermeasures beyond fines. She remains convinced, however, that “the Brazilian way is too far-reaching,” according to the report.
US regulators have an option to ban harmful online content because of a provision under the Communications Decency Act of 1996, it is also known as Section 230 that shields websites from liability for third-party content on their platforms. While lawmakers in both parties agree on the need to update the nearly three-decade old measure, Republicans and Democrats disagree vehemently over what changes to make, according to the report.
The Biden administration signaled a more hands-off approach toward disinformation as on Tuesday, the Justice Department issued new guidelines saying it would not push for removal of online content when sharing information with social-media sites about foreign threats to national security or elections, according to the report.
Justice officials will leave it to the platforms to decide whether to block users or remove harmful content. The move comes after accusations from Meta Platforms Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg that the Biden administration had violated free-speech principles in pushing to censor Covid-related content, as per the report.
“That’s one thing which is obviously not applicable in Brazil because Brazil’s Constitution does not interpret the freedom of speech as an absolute right,” said Santos cited in the report, noting that Brazil’s system of government created a very strong judiciary empowered to act “in defense of democracy.”
US Congress decided that freedom of speech doesn’t outweigh national security regarding TikTok, which faces a ban unless its Chinese parent divests the video-sharing app. Part of the mechanism for enforcing this ban would be the same that Brazil is using to block X: prohibit local internet service providers from hosting the website, as per the report.
In the whole Brazil ban fight, Elon Musk can count on support from right-wing allies. Bolsonaro’s followers are planning a march on Saturday, the country’s Independence Day, to call for Moraes’ impeachment. Local elections next month in Brazil will be an important test of the strength of Bolsonaro’s movement since he lost the presidency in 2022, as per the report.
Santos said that accusations of censorship risk being used by Bolsonaro supporters to cast doubt on the validity of the result, according to the report.
To reduce the spread of fake news, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government has sought legislation holding big tech companies responsible. Reviving the bill now, however, is near impossible, owing to the politicization of the topic, said a Justice Ministry official familiar with the situation who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, according to the report.
For now, the standoff shows no easing, with Elon Musk refusing to comply with the judge’s orders and the fight embroiling some of the billionaire’s other business interests. Musk’s Starlink satellite communication service had its bank accounts frozen by Moraes, and his SpaceX venture has warned employees against travel to Brazil for work or personal reasons, as per the report.
“Where this is heading from here will really depend on Elon Musk. I think if Elon Musk decides to start to comply, as he eventually did in India, for example, it might be that X comes back,” said Mariana Valente, a law professor and the director of the Brazil’s InternetLab, a think tank, quoted in the report. “But if Elon Musk doesn’t act differently, I think X or Twitter will be blocked in Brazil for a long time,” she told the agency.
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