From the EU to Brazil, the battle that X has to wage against censorship-prone governments is not winding down.
It’s been months now that X, and its owner Elon Musk, have been embroiled in disputes over censorship demands coming out of Brazil, specifically its Supreme Federal Court (STF).
Musk dubbed the demand for X to comply with yet another batch of censorship demands as, “not right.” And instead of, say, a meme, he included screenshots of the orders (in Portuguese) as he replied to a post featuring the news.
But Musk did repeat the well-known accusation: that these demands in fact break Brazil’s own law. And a familiar figure, supposed to protect that law, signed the demands: Alexandre de Moraes.
What has changed is the additions to a growing list of new names. X’s Brazilian branch is supposed to be silent on behalf of the government.
This fresh list out of Moraes’ office includes a pastor, a serving parliamentarian, and the wife of a former legislator – all of them popular and critical of the government (i.e. former President Bolsonaro supporter) accounts.
Or as Moraes would have it, those engaged in “illegal activities.”
X was supposed to block the accounts within 24 hours, but keep access logs, connections, and other data associated with them. X will otherwise pay about $10,000 for each day of non-compliance.
Moraes is stressing the censorship push requires “confidentiality” in the interest of an investigation – that doesn’t seem to be working so well for him, at least where X is concerned.
Other than Musk’s post, the social media company’s Global Affairs actually disclosed the censorship orders, adding, “We believe the Brazilian people should know what is being asked of us.”
Another post from the same team revealed that even more demands came from Brazil, seeking users’ personal information and that this time, people in Argentina and the US are also affected.
Again, Moraes’ desire to do his censorship work in the shadows seems to be ignored, and even taunted a bit: “We share those (orders) here in the interests of essential transparency,” wrote X’s Global Affairs.
Meanwhile, it came to light that the letters came on August 8, but the accounts were still standing on X as of the 14th.
