Late last night, the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives released over 500 pages of confidential Brazilian court documents relating to censorship demands on X, formerly Twitter. The Committee had obtained them from X through its subpoena powers.
The documents show a single Superior Electoral Court (TSE) Justice, Alexandre de Moraes, demanding permanent bans on over 150 elected officials and journalists. De Moraes demanded these bans in secret processes, without explanation or means of appeal, and across social media platforms. Given the dependence of elected leaders on social media, these demands for bans may constitute electoral interference.
In one case, De Moraes demanded that all major social media platforms, including at least one, Twitter, which did not publish the offending material, ban a federal Congressman, Marcel Van Hattem. The TSE had claimed that Van Hattem had criticized the election results. Not only had Van Hattan’s video not been related to the elections, but it was also a criticism of the Labor Department. It was released one day before the election.
In many ways, Brazil’s sweeping censorship system is unique to Brazil. Brazil’s Censorship Industrial Complex is located in the judiciary rather than in the executive branch, as it is in Europe, in the European Commission, and the U.S., in the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, National Science Foundation, and other agencies.
However, in other ways, Brazil’s censorship simply reflects the most advanced form of the Censorship Industrial Complex vision created by US and UK government officials, particularly ones working for the military and intelligence agencies.
