Brazil has not just banned X (formerly Twitter) from the entire country, but citizens will now be fined $9000 a day (more than the average salary in the country) for using VPNs to access the platform. X is the main source of news for Brazilians, who will now be left with government-approved sources or face financial ruin in seeking unfettered information.
The Guardian is reporting that the confiscatory fines are part of a comprehensive crackdown on efforts to get news through X, including ordering all Apple stores to remove X from new phones.
The move puts Brazil with China in the effort to create a wall of censorship between citizens and unregulated information.
For the anti-free speech movement, Brazil is a key testing ground for where the movement is heading next. European censors are arresting CEOs like Pavel Durov while threatening Elon Musk.
However, it is Brazil that foreshadows the brave new world of censorship where entire nations will block access to sites committed to free speech values or unfettered news. If successful, the Brazilian model is likely to be replicated by other countries.
The reason is that censorship is not working. As discussed in my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” we have never seen the current alliance of government, corporate, academic, and media interest against free speech. Yet, citizens are not buying it.
Despite unrelenting attacks and demonizing media coverage, citizens are still using X and resisting censorship. That was certainly the case in Brazil where citizens preferred X to regulated news sources. The solution is now to threaten citizens with utter ruin if they seek unfettered news.
The question is whether Brazil’s leftist government can get away with this. The conflict began with demands to censor supporters of the conservative former president Jair Bolsonaro. When X refused the sweeping demands for censorship, including the demand to name a legal representative who could be arrested for refusing to censor users, the courts moved toward this national ban.
The man behind the effort is Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who has aggressively used censorship to combat anything that he or the government deems “fake news” or disinformation. With socialist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, they are the dream team of the anti-free speech movement.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison responded to the ban with a posting declaring “Obrigado Brasil!” or “Thanks, Brazil!” Ironically, he did so on X.
Ellison previously praised the virulently anti-free speech group Antifa and promised that it would “strike fear in the heart” of Donald Trump. This was after Antifa had been involved in numerous acts of violence and its website was banned in Germany. It is at its base a movement at war with free speech, defining the right itself as a tool of oppression. That purpose is evident in what is called the “bible” of the Antifa movement: Rutgers Professor Mark Bray’s Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook.
Bray emphasizes the struggle of the movement against free speech: “At the heart of the anti-fascist outlook is a rejection of the classical liberal phrase that says, ‘I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’” Bray admits that “most Americans in Antifa have been anarchists or antiauthoritarian communists… From that standpoint, ‘free speech’ as such is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.”
The question is whether Brazil will become a nightmare for free speech around the world as other nations seek to force citizens to read and hear news from approved, state-monitored sites.
* Brazil is a 3rd world. Get some perspective. It’s just a way to rob people and rip off Musk. Musk could spend 5 million and pay off 5 judges easily.
WOW!!!!! This is VERY scary!!!!
Brazil;…..Land of Nazis and currently, Nazi wannabes. What do you expect?
So is the oh so patriotic NFL going to pay the fines for any of the players in the Neo-Commie São Paulo game if they dare to use X?
Don’t purchase goods produced by Brazil. That includes their
coffee. Don’t give them your tourist dollars either.
Guess who made the following speech?
“She destroyed the city of San Francisco, it’s — and I own a big building there — it’s no — I shouldn’t talk about this but that’s OK I don’t give a damn because this is what I’m doing. I should say it’s the finest city in the world — sell and get the hell out of there, right? But I can’t do that. I don’t care, you know? I lost billions of dollars, billions of dollars. You know, somebody said, ‘What do you think you lost?’ I said, ‘Probably two, three billion. That’s OK, I don’t care.’ They say, ‘You think you’d do it again?’ And that’s the least of it. Nobody.”
Good old brain rot DJT
Sounds good. Whats your point?
Are actual Americans really going to allow their Titanic to sink?
Just stand idly by and watch it go down?
* The Constitution of the United States of America is good. The kinks must be worked out every now and then.
Freedom to assemble
* just locating major traitorous groups and threats to national security…it’s messy.
* This little site is a peaceable assembly. It uses speech and assembly and often a thought about redress. When such is censored people don’t have a way to assemble freely worldwide. Yes, it’s serious business. It’s the one world vision and a thousand points of light?
Perhaps pig Latin might work…
So exactly who are the present day nazis?
“Deutschland, Deutschland über alles,” Rogers posted on social media, after the Alternative for Germany party racked up wins in two state elections over the weekend.
In case your confused, Roger’s is an Arizona republican.
Present day Nazi^^^
Today, Kamala avoided reporters questions by pretending she was on a phone call. Letting alone the fact she was pretending to have CORDED ear buds, some one should tell her that when you pretend use them, you shouldn’t pretend by holding the phone to your ear as well.
This person is too stupid to be president. I guess it just doesnt matter anymore.
Kamalalaland
A woman posted a video:
Alexa, why should I vote for Donald Trump?
A: i cannot give advice on political candidates
Alexa, why should I vote for Kamala Harris?
A: While there are many reasons to vote for Kamala Harris, blah blah blah…
Amazon says they have fixed the “glitch”
Everything exploded with the Twitter archives, which unmasks the censorship system orchestrated by the “word soup” agencies of the “5 eyes”
Once it was exposed, they no longer bothered to hide it, they went from denial to the most blatant support justifying their argument with reverse psychology techniques.
Mike Benz, executive Director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, is a former State Department diplomat who specialized in international communications and information technology matters affirms
“Recent Biden Administration actions show that the apparatus constructed to control disinformation has not been deterred by recent setbacks and continues to contact U.S. social media companies to police information as the election approaches”
In the U.S. the Biden Administration has shown no signs of slowing down its efforts despite Zuckerberg’s reversal and apology. Quite the opposite.
1- The administration recently appointed a new director of the White House Office of Digital Strategy, a nerve center for censorship activities – Andy Volosky, the new official, is an outspoken censorship advocate and praised social platforms’ – efforts to block Donald Trump’s accounts.
2- Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, a long-time proponent of censorship, Robert Reich stated with complete serenity – “Regulators around the world should threaten Musk with arrest if he doesn’t stop disseminating lies and hate on X.”
AND HERE COMES THE CHILLINGLY TERRIFYING
Benz said there is another effort by the Biden Administration to spread its censorship activities abroad and may be a warning for things to come in America. “So in terms of 2024 their main battering ram right now is coming from two sources:
1- One is the pursuit of global censorship laws,
2- and this is what the State Department is doing,”
Indeed, the American administration has been joined by Canada, the European Union, France, the Uk and Brazil in efforts to reign in purported disinformation.
Benz assures that it is nothing more than trying to impose suppression through third parties, since here it is stopped by the constitution and, unfortunately for “the global cliques”, the Supreme Court of Justice.
________________________________________________________________________-
And as news travels faster than the pen, as my dear Matt Taibbi says, before you finish this article, the thing about Brazil was going far away!!!! I’ll put some important points into context:
1- Mosk’s controversy with Judge De Moraes came about because the judge sent a court order to X Brazil, ordering the immediate censorship of the Deputy who was denouncing Judge De Moraes himself for abuse and intimidation using an old policeman who shows up at the homes of journalists he wants to intimidate, but in particular this included the 16-year-old daughter, whom the Judge also asked to be censored because she was recording the incident.
2- When the representative of X Brazil appeared in court, he wanted to intimidate her by saying that if they didn’t censor her on a free day at his request, she and the rest of the 13 representatives would go to jail. Elon proceeded to cancel the 13 to avoid imprisonment and informing the judge of the dissolution of the representative office.
3- The judge in retaliation ordered that for each day that they did not respond to him in person he had a fine of XXXXXX. Elon refused to send any representative or lawyer to protect them from personal repressive actions. Mosk invited the judge to block X, because he was not going to be intimidated, but the judge refused because he wanted a hostage in person.
4- Having no one to confront or fine, he proceeded to seize the accounts of Starlink and Teslas, as if they were the same constitutive company.
5- Elon said: Starlink is taking legal action in Brazil’s Supreme Court after De Moraes froze its assets and blocked access to X, citing the orders as unconstitutional. I am only the owner of 40% of the shares of that company. You don’t know who you’re messing with, starting with Google
6- Bill Ackman criticized Brazil’s Supreme Court for blocking X and freezing Starlink accounts, comparing the actions to China’s free speech crackdowns and warning of potential capital flight.
7- Elon challenged him and said, you can block X from private repeaters, but Starlink is over Brazil, for their dishonesty, the Brazilian people do not have to be punished, and the satellites will continue to provide internet to the Brazilian people and gladly for FREE, anyway there is always a VPN.
8- That made his stupid intimidation of VPNs jump to a population of 215 million people.
9- In the end Brazil’s Supreme Court confirmed the closure of the platform but denied the $9,000 dollars from the VPNs.
10-Starlink’s decision to block 𝕏 in Brazil shows its commitment to respecting Brazilian law and court orders, while it has also taken legal action in the Supreme Court to challenge Judge Alexandre de Moraes’ unlawful freezing of its assets.” “He promises that D’Silva’s plane will be seized” hahaha
As a final dessert ELON RELEASED YESTERDAY THE BRAZIL X FILES from Judge Alejandro De Moraes.
* Alexandre Files @AlexandreFiles
https://x.com/AlexandreFiles
I just got the X Files
Well, that is interesting. Today I have had two comments deleted that had been successfully posted, one to a post to Diogenes (on the subject of the left not having a plan for unity), and one to a post by John Say (on how a single justice in Brasil can ban X there). Neither comment contained any profanity; neither insulted any other commenter here in any way, shape or form. After due consideration, I have decided to abandon this asylum to the lunatics. The commenters who appear to exist only to make this place untenable for the reasonable debate of ideas are permitted to disrupt this section at will (some post anonymously, but a number use consistent screen names), but serious, thoughtful comments get deleted. Turley and his designated moderators profess to desire as few limitations on free speech here as possible, but the deletion of thoughtful comments while obvious trash remains is highly inconsistent with that objective. There are a few worthwhile posters here, but even they, while railing about trolls, seem to have a compulsion to foolishly debate charlatans who cannot even be tied down to a consistent position, which makes this section virtually unreadable at times. Finally, and most importantly, the only rational purpose for me to post a comment here is to try to persuade another poster to change his or her mind about an idea or an issue (I don’t consider the vain, shallow ego boost of seeing my alias attached to something publicly visible on the web to qualify). While, on exceedingly rare occasion, someone here may acknowledge a correction on a matter of well established fact, have seen never evidence of even a single mind being changed. That makes my presence here a colossal waste of my time and energy. Good-bye.
EXACTLY, dumb ass.
People who would bother to post here will NEVER have their mind changed by anyone.
It’s a clown show.
* well I’ve learned a tid bit here and there. The fellow with the rat story for instance was interesting.
Ragnar D,
The WP backend server seemed to be having issues yesterday. Might of been traffic volume too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmcqcbC16OU
Great dialogue with a transcript on Kamala Harris. He says her father is not black and explains why. He discusses how bad a prosecutor she was and lots more. You can shorten the video by combining portions of the transcript. She is an incompetent liar.
Lula is a communist scum bag
Marxist order
Take judiciary
Remove free speech and press
Enslave the people
“It’s hard to soar with the eagles when you’re surrounded by Türkiyes.”
– Adam Sandler
What does an Eagle do when it is attacked by a Türkiye?
Take out Istanbul in one fell swoop as a demo?
Yes it does if the Eagle will stand up for itself and not take any s— off a ——- Türkiye.