Posted on 04/05/2024 5:22:39 PM PDT by NetAddicted
The ‘Twitter Files Brazil’ reveal how Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes led a ‘sweeping crackdown on free speech’ and targeted conservative voices in the lead-up to the presidential election.
(LifeSiteNews) — Internal information from Twitter has shown how the deep state in Brazil pressured the platform to censor content and interfered in the 2022 presidential election.
Journalist and author Michael Shellenberger released the “Twitter Files Brazil,” which show “a sweeping crackdown on free speech led by a Supreme Court justice named Alexandre de Moraes.”
Online censorship has been a known issue in Brazil for a while. According to Brazilian investigative journalist David Agape, “the FBI has helped Brazil censor its citizens; the Soroses’ ‘Open Society Foundation’ is spending heavily to promote censorship in Brazil; and Brazil has a secret judicial police force that exists specifically to spy upon and censor people deemed to be spreading false information.”
READ: 6 bombshell facts from Elon Musk’s Twitter Files you need to know
“Together, the FBI, the Soroses, and the Supreme Court of Brazil are engaged in a direct assault on the free speech protections of both the Brazilian and U.S. Constitutions,” Agape wrote.
The findings from the “Twitter Files Brazil” appear to confirm the existence of a Brazilian “Censorship Industrial Complex.”
Internal emails from Rafael Batista, Twitter’s (now X) legal counsel in Brazil, show that in February 2020, members of Brazil’s Congress asked Twitter to release direct messages (DMs) and login records, “among other info,” of some users regarding the spread of so-called “disinformation.” Twitter pushed back against the demand at that time because it was illegal under Brazilian privacy laws, according to Batista.
In January 2021, Batista told his colleagues that a police investigation had been launched against him for refusing to hand over user data from Twitter to the São Paulo State Public Prosecutor Office. According to the Twitter attorney, the prosecutor claimed that Twitter’s position “is isolated because all the other big technology companies such as Google, Facebook, Uber, WhatsApp, and Instagram provide registration data and phone numbers without a court order.”
Twitter, however, “has not [sic] affirmative obligation to collect registration data,” Batista told the prosecutor.
Batista noted that “[t]here is no affirmative obligation in the country for collection and consequently provision of ‘registration data.’”
Batista reported that a judge rejected the prosecutor’s demand to hand over the requested user data. However, the Brazilian courts became more aggressive in their censorship demands the following year, after Alexandre de Moraes took over as president of Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE).
In May 2021, Batista emailed his colleagues to complain that YouTube’s decision to hand over data to Brazilian government agencies would weaken their position when defending the privacy of Brazilian users.
“Google delivered to the Brazilian Senate at least 200 gigs of videos that had been deleted from YouTube by people connected to the federal government” related to a senate investigation regarding COVID-related content.
Batista said Google’s actions set “a very concerning precedent… that contradicts and weakens our stance towards privacy since we have always pushed back against requests from congressional commissions, even when involving only basic subscribe info and IPS.”
In August 2021, the Brazilian deep state started to go after conservative President Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters. Batista said in an email that the TSE demanded that accounts of “heavy supporters of President Bolsonaro” who “have been constantly engaging in coordinated attacks against members of the Supreme Court” and “Superior Electoral Court… The court order is focused on the demonetization of these accounts – from different platforms[.]”
“Even though this obligation initially does not touch us, the court also determined Twitter, YouTube, Twitch TV, Instagram and Facebook to: i) refrain from algorithmically suggesting profiles and videos of political content discrediting the electoral system (legitimacy of elections) in association with those users/accounts and also ii) identify the origin of specific content (we have not been served with any specific Tweet URLs).”
The head of Twitter’s legal team, Diego de Lima Gualda, responded by saying, “There is a strong political component with this investigation, and the court is trying to put pressure for compliance.”
Shellenberger reports that the TSE furthermore demanded that Twitter reveal the identity of anonymous users who used certain hashtags critical of the electoral system.
Batista said, “President Bolsonaro himself and several of his supporters are being investigated in this procedure (15 Twitter account handles have been provided so far).”
In March 2022, de Moraes took office as TSE president and ramped up censorship pressure on social media platforms in the lead-up to the presidential election.
Schellenberg writes:
On March 30, 2022, the day after de Moraes took office as president of the TSE, the TSE mandated Twitter to, within a week and under the threat of a daily fine of 50,000 BRL (US$ 10,000), supply data on the monthly trend statistics for the hashtags #VotoImpressoNAO (“PrinteVoteNo”) and #VotoDemocraticoAuditavel (“DemocraticAuditableVote”).
The court coerced Twitter into censoring several accounts, including two elected House members, for allegedly spreading “disinformation” under the threat of heavy fines. Twitter pushed back on these requests and appealed the orders but ended up complying with some of the requests due to the pressure of the heavy penalties.
Shellenberger noted, “Brazil’s high court and Twitter removed political speech and penalized users for debating policies. In this way, the court appears to have interfered in a major presidential election.”
Free speech continues to be under attack in Brazil “TSE’s request is clearly abusive,” Brazilian attorney and legal scholar Hugo Freitas said regarding the revelations in the “Twitter Files Brazil.”
He added, “Posting hashtags to promote legislative changes is completely appropriate for a democracy, and it’s no crime predicted by Brazilian law.”
Shellenberger warned that free speech is being restricted increasingly under the current administration. He said, “Brazil’s Censorship Industrial Complex is demanding that Congress pass ‘Fake News’ censorship legislation.”
“The bill would hold social media companies hostage if they didn’t comply with vague censorship requirements. The bill doesn’t define what ‘fake news’ or ‘disinformation’ are.”
“TSE’s censorship is an attack on the democratic process,” the investigative journalist noted. “Elections can remain free and fair only if the public is able to debate and question election laws, systems, and results. If there ever is electoral fraud in Brazil, nobody will be allowed to talk about it, if de Moraes gets his way.”
Recently, a decision by Brazil’s Supreme Court caused Twitter, which is now called X after new owner Elon Musk rebranded the company, to bring back a penalty for “misgendering” gender-confused individuals on the platforms in countries that make “misgendering” illegal.
Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled in a 9-1 decision in August 2023 that “hate speech” against LGBT-identifying individuals is punishable with prison time.
The court likened “homophobia” and insults toward the so-called “LGBTQIAPN+ community” to racism, which already carries sentences of prison time and fines.
READ: Brazil’s Supreme Court rules anti-LGBT speech is punishable with prison time
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Twitchy article on Twitter Files Brazil:
https://twitchy.com/aaronwalker/2024/04/03/michael-shellenberger-shares-the-brazilian-twitter-files-n2394713
Just like in America.
Totalitarians will be totalitarians, whatever country they are in.
They hate freedom and love control.
Ping
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