Brazil’s top court, the Supreme Federal Court (STF), continues to “dabble” in censorship, on issues big and small.
A site set up by journalist, biologist, and free speech advocate Eli Vieira to satirize, criticize, and document what opponents see as controversial activities of one of STF members, Dias Toffol, has been blocked.
The fate of the site seems to have been determined “only” by its name – “Death to Democracy” (“Morte à Democracia” in Portuguese). Still, the whole debacle is taken by opponents of President Lula as yet more proof that democracy in Brazil is indeed, to put it mildly, struggling.
In a post on X, Vieira confirmed that the domain http://morteademocracia.com.br was frozen. He advised others not to buy .br domains because his “experiment” just showed that the authorities can shut those down arbitrarily.
Vieira only registered the site under this particular domain after Toffol, a Lula nominee, used an STF hearing to ask a lawyer if someone would be allowed to do that.
The lawyer replied that it was possible if the domain was available. But the real answer arrived after Vieira tried doing it – only to get the site blocked in less than a day.
During the hearing, which was dedicated to “regulating” (that is, censoring) social media, Toffol had commented that if such a domain can be registered, it could also be removed in a judicial process – “based” on Article 19.
But when Vieira tried to find out why and how his short-lived site was “frozen,” what he discovered didn’t seem to indicate that (due and democratic) judicial process was involved.
Vieira says his conclusion about the ability of the authorities to arbitrarily block sites was only cemented by a note he received from the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee, CGI.br.
The government agency titled its communication, “Clarification Note” – namely, regarding the domain freezing – but Vieira does not think that it actually clarified anything, notably, what law he supposedly violated by registering the domain, which would have prompted the censorship.
The note does claim that neither CGI.br nor NIC.br makes decisions because of a site’s content (but then – who does?). Instead, apparently, that’s just based on the domain name.
“This position is confirmed by the fact that the same content from the frozen domain is available on the web under other .br domains,” the note attempts to “clarify” the situation.
