Let's check in on the "my democracy" folks down in Brazil:
If you missed it, the top justice of Brazil's supreme court has Elon Musk and X/Twitter in his sights after the tech company refused to ban or hand over the private messages and information of Brazilians who are guilty of "misinformation," including wrongthink about the very-free-and-fair 2022 presidential election there (sound familiar?).
That's Justice Alexandre de Moraes, AKA the Bond villain of the hour. He has opened a criminal investigation into Elon Musk for "allegedly spreading disinformation, obstructing justice, and allowing people who De Moraes had banned from social media to freely express their views."
De Moraes is fining X $20,000 per day "for every banned person Musk allows to speak."
The New York Times notes that De Moraes "has jailed people without trial for posting threats on social media; helped sentence a sitting congressman to nearly nine years in prison for threatening the court; ordered raids on businessmen with little evidence of wrongdoing; suspended an elected governor from his job; and unilaterally blocked dozens of accounts and thousands of posts on social media, with virtually no transparency or room for appeal."
Musk has remained firm, believing that the Brazilian government is breaking its own laws and constitution in this censorship campaign. He acknowledged Monday that this would likely lead to the shutdown of the national X office in Brazil.
The concern is that De Moraes, along with re-elected leftist President Lula, are making this push for censorship in a totalitarian bid to shut down free speech, which would allow them to do ... well, whatever they want to do in the months and years ahead.
Lula is currently targeting his rival, former President Jair Bolsonaro, with a criminal investigation "over allegations he was planning a military takeover of the country before losing the 2022 presidential elections."
Of course, De Moraes is the judge in charge of the investigation.
On Monday night, Brazilian Congressman Nikolas Ferriera responded to Musk's allegation that De Moraes has President Lula "on a leash." Musk promised to deliver a "data dump" with evidence after X employees in the country are safe.
We'll let you know if Musk manages to get them out of Brazil and what comes next.
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