X (Formerly Twitter) Now Illegal In Brazil Amid Feud Between Elon Musk And A Supreme Court Justice

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Written by Uriel Araujo, PhD, anthropology researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts

X (formerly known as Twitter) has been suspended in Brazil after a controversial Supreme Court ruling. The whole matter has been described as an ongoing “feud” between X owner Elon Musk and Justice Alexandre de Moraes. If one wishes to understand what is going on in Brazil, it is necessary to go back in time, though.

In the heated 2023 Brazilian general elections, the leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated then-president Jair Bolsonaro (a radical right-winger), who was running for re-election. Lula himself had been in jail before for corruption charges but had his sentence annulled in 2021. On 1 January 2024, Lula was inaugurated as the President of Brazil. The fact is that a few days after that, on 8 January 2023, a large crowd of Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed the Planalto Presidential Palace, and other federal buildings. Many acts of vandalism were committed, and, in the words of many of the demonstrators themselves, what they hoped to accomplish was a “military intervention”, based on their peculiar reading of the 142nd article of the Brazilian constitution. They were protesting against Lula’s inauguration and many or most of them believed the election had been stolen from Bolsonaro. At the time Bolsonaro was in Orlando (Florida), where he had been since the last days of 2022, even before his term as President had ended.

Over 1,400 people were arrested, and there were about 84 people injured. No one died and not a single one of the protesters carried firearms, although some did carry slingshots and sharp tools. Many of them were elderly and pensioners. The episode was compared to the January 6 United States Capitol protests nevertheless. Most of the people arrested remain behind bars to this day, having been convicted of terrorism – a new and controversial definition of terrorism has been used against them. They face up to 17 years of prison. Such is the case of 67-year old Maria de Fátima Mendonça Jacinto Souza, who was sentenced to 17 years in prison. The elderly woman was not armed, and was not filmed damaging federal property – she was in any case charged with trying to overthrow the democratic state of law (Rechtsstaat). The aforementioned Minister of the Supreme Federal Court Alexandre de Moraes has been playing a key role in the harsh measures taken against the so-called “bolsonaristas”.

Bolsonaro in turn had casted doubts on the election process. In January that year, however, he did condemn the 8 January incidents and has repeatedly condemned them, although often in ambiguous terms. He still casts doubts on the integrity of the election process and claims the Brazilian  voting machine devices cannot be trusted.

Some analysts believe Bolsonaro and his allies did attempt a coup d’état and that there was indeed a real risk of it taking place. Others understand that Bolsonaro and his group just hoped to keep a radicalized minority of supporters incensed, so that they could be counted for during intense demonstrations against Lula’s presidency, as a way to maintain a loyal base and to destabilize the new administration, thus undermining its credibility and popularity. In the same way, the fact that were people who believed the election had been stolen, including violent protesters (albeit not ones carrying guns) could be used by Bolsonaro as a political tool for leverage, while Bolsonaro could make claims condemning the 8 January invasion (as he did) and thus present himself as the only one who could keep such people on a leash, so to speak. Truth be told, Incensed radicalized pensioners without firearms can cause a lot of damage to federal buildings but it is hard to maintain that they could be a threat to the Brazilian Military Police and Army and overturn the government – even if many of them wanted to do so and believed this to be feasible.

Some documents and even footage indicating Bolsonaro did plan a coup have surfaced. However, although they do show that Bolsonaro and his inner circle of ministers and advisors discussed possible measures to overturn the results of the 2022 election (in a way that can only be described as undemocratic), it was unclear how much the discussion of these scenarios consisted in actual conspiring, as reported by a Guardian piece.

In any case, Brazilian Justice Moraes has arguably weaponized the war against the Brazilian far-right and the defense of democracy as a way to expand the power of the court and his own powers. His measures have been described by critics as abuse of power, as biased, and authoritarian. His supporters in turn claim they are necessary to defend democratic rule and prevent a coup. A 2023 New York Times piece pointed out that 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.”

For years, the Executive Power and the Judiciary Power have been at loggerheads in Brazil. Moraes embodies this battle in a blunter way, but he is no anomaly. Be it as it may, those are matters for Brazilian society and authorities. Moraes may very well be a biased and authoritarian judge in a crusade, but Elon Musk is certainly on a crusade of his own, as well – and he certainly has a political agenda. Musk did refuse to appoint a legal representative in Brazil and has been failing to comply with court orders. The hypocrisy of the billionaire’s actions is all the more blatant if one considers the fact that Musk was ok with blocking hundreds of social media accounts and ok with complying with content removal orders in Turkey and India, for example. Why not in Brazil? If Moraes controversial measure can be used to cast doubts on Brazil’s “sécurité juridique” so to speak, Musk’s failure to comply with local laws and court orders can also cast doubts on the billionaire and his companies, not to mention on the political role they may play.

To sum it up, Brazil’s situation with X has its own context and intricacies (into which I delved here), but one can expect analogous scenarios to come about in other countries, especially in the contexts of elections, with potential political and geopolitical consequences. The truth is that the way to regulate social media and the internet as a whole is an inescapable discussion.

As I wrote in 2022, we live in an age of information warfare, online piracy, espionage, child pornography, extremism hacker attacks, and sophisticated money laundering operations. Eventually, the chaotic internet zone must be circumscripted under the sign of law and order and different states are considering it – even though the very way to accomplish that leaves room for a lot of abuse of controversy.

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