X is blocked in Brazil

Sept. 2, 2024

Social media platform X was blocked in Brazil by the country’s supreme court after the company refused to comply with local legislation. Today a panel of five Supreme Court justices unanimously voted to support Justice Alexandre de Moraes’ Friday decision to ban the social platform. (Guardian, Associated Press)

Internet providers and mobile phone companies began to enforce the ban on Saturday, leaving the country with the fifth largest digital population, unable to access one of the world’s most popular social networks, reports the Guardian.

Some 40 million Brazilians, roughly one-fifth of the population, access X at least once per month, reports CNN. Half a million users migrated to rival microblogging site Bluesky, reports TechCrunch.

“The moment posed one of the biggest tests yet of the billionaire’s efforts to transform the site into a digital town square where just about anything goes,” reports the New York Times. It also raises significant questions about Brazil’s aggressive approach — lauded in many corners — to combating “the scourge of internet falsehoods,” reports the New York Times.

The ban is the latest in a months long feud between Brazilian Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes, who is investigating misinformation online and hate speech aimed at undermining the country’s democracy, and X owner Elon Musk, who says efforts to limit misinformation are tantamount to censorship. (See Friday’s post.)

The ban responds specifically Musk’s refusal to name a legal representative for X in Brazil — as required by law — in order to circumvent requirements in April to close down several accounts which a judicial investigation determined had spread misinformation and disinformation about former president Jair Bolsonaro’s 2022 defeat. X had previously complied with such orders, last year, notes Tariq Choucair in the Conversation.

In a controversial move, de Moraes also froze the finances SpaceX's Starlink satellite-internet service in Brazil, also partly owned by Musk, to try to collect $3 million in fines he has levied against X. Starlink said that it planned to fight the order and would make its service free in Brazil if necessary.

Yesterday Starlink informed Brazil’s telecom agency that it would not block X until Brazilian officials released Starlink's frozen assets, reports the New York Times.

De Moraes has threatened to fine people in Brazil who access X via VPN, a move some commentators say is illegal. However the decision was upheld by the rest of the Supreme Court justices today. (Guardian)

More Brazil

• The federal police chief leading the investigation into the murders of Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips in Brazil was unexpectedly removed from the case.

  Indigenous activists and lawyers in Brazil have voiced shock and dismay, reports the Guardian.

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The September Window in Mexico

Mexico’s new Congress assumed yesterday, and outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador gave his final state of the union speech. President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum swears in on Oct. 1, and AMLO is pushing to leverage his coalition’s strong majority in Congress to push through a raft of reforms.

In his speech yesterday AMLO touted his administration’s accomplishments on crime reduction, immigration, energy and infrastructure projects and poverty reduction, reports Bloomberg. “I am leaving with a clear conscience and very happy,” he told the packed Zócalo square. (Animal Político)

Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies is set to debate AMLO’s judicial reform plan tomorrow, is expected to pass the legislation later in the week, ruling Morena party chamber leader Ricardo Monreal said yesterday. (Reuters)

But critics say the country’s catastrophic impunity rates are the fault of prosecutors and state-level attorney general’s offices, and so won’t be improved by the reform. The proposed judicial reform “would undermine judicial independence, government accountability, and the right to privacy,” according to Human Rights Watch, and “could also lead to an increase in military abuses and arbitrary detentions.”

Mexico’s ruling Morena party super majority in Congress “amounts to a serious threat to Mexico’s already fragile checks and balances,” argues Solange Márquez Espinoza in Americas Quarterly. “Decades of hard-fought reforms aimed at ensuring fair representation, transparency, and checks on executive power are at risk.”

AMLO has painted his reforms as a way to battle corruption with elections. Critics say Morena is angling to create a PRI-style one party rule, reports Foreign Policy.

Outrage over the reforms belies AMLO’s popularity, and tragic state of the country’s current judiciary. General impunity is over 95% and the judicial power is among the least trusted in the country. López Obrador says the reforms, which include making all federal judges chosen by popular election, are necessary because the judicial system is "not at the service of the people" and instead "responds to the interests of organized crime."

AMLO’s popularity is at about 70%, and he gave his state of the union speech before a packed Zocalo square, notes Ioan Grillo in Crashout. “Put your hands up if you think it’s better that the people elect the judges,” AMLO said, and the crowd raised their arms and cheered.

While few believe the reform will solve the country’s judicial problems, it is notable that protests have mainly come from the judicial sector itself, which has failed to make its own proposals for reform. The reforms at least open up the debate over how to address the judicial sector’s entrenched corruption, CIDE investigator Carlos Pérez Ricart told me. (Cenital)

More Mexico

• AMLO ignored the families of disappeared people in his final state of the union, reports Animal Político.

Venezuela

• Nicolás Maduro is holding onto power by terror-creating repression — detaining critics, children, journalists, and opposition figures — which has citizens watching what they say online and off, writes Luz Mely Reyes in El País. “But a government cannot be sustained by terror alone. Funding is needed to resort to another old tactic: surgical repression, while distributing resources and improving management.”

• Authorities of the Arturo Michelena University infiltrated student WhatsApp groups and detected critics of the government and the rector’s support for it, reports Armando Info.

• Venezuela’s exodus in recent years has been striking — a quarter of the population has fled economic misery and political repression. The case of the once thriving oil city of Maracaibo is particularly striking, reports the New York Times. The country’s second-largest city “has been hollowed out by the loss of about half a million of its 2.2 million inhabitants — many of them adults in their late teens to middle age.”

Bahamas

• Five years after Hurricane Dorian ravaged the Bahamas the survivors of Mudd — a destroyed shantytown where thousands lived — are still struggling to rebuild their lives. “In the age of global climate crisis… the story of the Mudd offers a troubling vision of the future – one where those with the fewest resources to start again must contend with increasingly destructive weather, largely on their own,” reports the Guardian.

Migration

• “It has been a month since a group of nearly 300 Mexican nationals were displaced by violence in the south of the country, seeking shelter across the border in Guatemala. The Guatemalan government is looking to extend the temporary humanitarian status they have provided to the displaced, with 21 of those individuals reportedly in the process of seeking refugee status,” reports the Americas Migration Brief.

• At least 291 migrants have disappeared or died at sea in the Caribbean this year, already surpassing 2023’s full-year total of 247, reports EFE. (Via Americas Migration Brief.)

Haiti

• “Unrelenting gang warfare in Port-au-Prince is fueling an exodus of people from Haiti’s capital, overwhelming already impoverished cities and towns and sparking fears that the gangs will follow,” reports the Washington Post.

Culture Corner

• “Despite being illegal, Jogo do Bicho – or animal lottery – in which players bet on combinations of creatures and numbers, can be played in every Brazilian state,” reports the Guardian. “Since its inception, the lottery has established profound connections with perhaps two of the most significant Brazilian cultural expressions – football and carnival – and has deeply affected urban violence, especially in Rio, where it was created.”

• “The biggest musical hits of recent months in Haiti have been marked by themes of reconciliation and heartbreak. Festive music has been almost eclipsed. While stories of passionate love and lasting friendships continue to inspire, the country's difficulties weigh heavily on the collective psyche.” — Haiti Weekly