Musk Meets His Match in Brazil’s Fake News-Fighting Top Court
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
(Bloomberg) -- Elon Musk may have found in Brazil the strongest challenger yet to his free speech crusade: a Supreme Court that seems ready to take its fight against online disinformation as far as it deems necessary, no matter the criticism it faces.
Most Read from Bloomberg
US Slams Strikes on Russia Oil Refineries as Risk to Oil Markets
S&P 500 Hit by Fed-Pivot Rethink and War Jitters: Markets Wrap
The belief that fake news is eroding democracy worldwide deepened among the Brazilian court’s justices as they surveyed the damage of the riotous insurrection attempt in the country’s capital in January 2023.
Thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro, believing the 2022 election had been stolen from him, laid waste to major government buildings, including the modernist home of the top court. In a sea of overturned tables, broken glass, and crumbled artifacts, most of the body’s 11 justices – already unusually powerful as individuals – decided to unite in a fight against the disinformation they saw as fuel for the rampage.
Since then, they have ordered the suspension of social media accounts from prominent users, forced the removal of posts, and even cautioned to temporarily shut down entire platforms such as Telegram and Musk’s X, leading the billionaire to threaten to disrespect the orders and prompting one of the justices to open an investigation into him on the following day. The court’s drastic actions, which mirror its often decisive approach to Brazil’s most controversial issues, has put it at the center of a global debate: are bodies like itself fighting to save democracy or becoming purely political – and even anti-democratic – institutions themselves?
It is a familiar position for Brazil’s Supreme Court, which has enraged both the right and left over the last decade, often facing allegations of overreach that follow the direction of the moment’s political winds.
The court has served as a lightning rod since it publicly broadcast hearings and debates of a massive vote-buying scandal that erupted during Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s first administration. It made possible the 2018 arrest of Lula, then an former president facing corruption charges, only to later change rules that kept him in jail and ultimately annul his convictions, paving the way for his return to the country’s top office last year. It battled Bolsonaro throughout his presidency over his disrespect for pandemic restrictions and false election claims. Even before he rose to the top office, Eduardo Bolsonaro, his son who serves in Brazil’s congress, suggested that the military should shut the court down.
The tremendous power the court wields has led presidents to increasingly see appointments to its ranks as high-stakes political affairs: Bolsonaro put a judge on the court because he was “terribly evangelical.” Lula, meanwhile, last year appointed his personal lawyer to fill an open seat.
Read More: Brazil’s Top Justice Opens Criminal Inquiry Against Elon Musk
Since the Jan. 8, 2023 insurrection attempt, the court’s efforts against fake news have only gained intensity and expanded. It has already convicted more than 100 people of anti-democratic acts related to the riots. One of its most controversial justices, Alexandre de Moraes, is also overseeing a federal investigation into whether Bolsonaro and top allies plotted a coup, one of numerous criminal inquiries involving the former president that could lead to his arrest.
Read More: Bolsonaro Targeted as Police Ensnares Alleged Coup Plotters
To its defenders the court is serving a vital role as the bulwark of a young democracy at risk, and it has used its powers to prevent the post-election mayhem caused by disinformation from becoming a total rupture.
“The court followed this whole process and certainly avoided the worst,” Justice Gilmar Mendes, the longest-serving member of the court, said in an interview from his office in Brasilia last week, before the spat with Musk erupted. “The court remained calm and played a decisive role in maintaining democracy in Brazil, suffering all attacks.”
But not everyone sees it that way. Brazil’s constitution outlines protections for expression, and while none are as forceful as the First Amendment to the US Constitution, critics have asserted that the court is overstepping its bounds in a way that is undermining free speech.
“We have come to understand freedom of expression not as a right but as a concession to be made very sparingly,” said Andre Marsiglia, a lawyer who specializes in freedom of expression at the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo. “Democracy is associated with freedom of expression. If the Supreme Court wants to be the guardian of democracy, it must be the guardian of freedom of expression.”
Read More: Brazil’s Top Court Bans Telegram in Crackdown on ‘Fake News’
That’s far from a consensus view among legal experts, but Bolsonaro and his allies have seized on such arguments to paint the court not as a defender of Brazilian democracy guided by law but as an authoritarian menace. He has long argued that the numerous legal investigations he is facing – as well as the eight-year political ban he received from the country’s top electoral court in June – amount to a political witch hunt.
His allies are now making the case abroad, seeking to bolster support for their fight with the court. Eduardo Bolsonaro argued that Brazil was no longer a democracy because of the judiciary during a recent interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
That has made Musk, a self-described free speech absolutist, a natural ally: Since taking over Twitter and rebranding it as X, the billionaire has moved further to the right, often promoting both right-wing influencers and political leaders. In May 2022, he made a surprise trip to Brazil and met Bolsonaro, who praised his efforts to take over the platform.
Amid his battle with Moraes, he has echoed the Bolsonaros’ claims, using his platform to call the judge “the dictator of Brazil” who “put his thumb on the scale to get Lula elected.” Neither X nor the Supreme Court have replied to requests for comment.
The dispute has generated speculation that Moraes may ultimately ban X from operating in Brazil. On the right, it has renewed calls among Bolsonaro’s allies for the impeachment of Moraes and other justices.
The court, meanwhile, appears unfazed by the drama.
“Without an independent judiciary there is no guarantee of law,” Justice Carmen Lucia said during a Tuesday session in Brasilia. “Without the guarantee of the Democratic State of Law, there is no security of democracy. Without democracy, there is no freedom, and without freedom, there is no dignity.”
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek
Toyota Aims to Beat Hyundai and Ford With Its All-New 4Runner
Everyone Is Rich, No One Is Happy. The Pro Golf Drama Is Back
How Bluey Became a $2 Billion Smash Hit—With an Uncertain Future
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
