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justice morais holds great power

phoenix technology news, september 3, beijing time, during the 2022 presidential election, false information was rampant on the brazilian internet. in order to combat fake news, the brazilian supreme court made an unusual and far-reaching decision:gave a judge broad powers to order the social network to remove content he deems a threat to democracy.

that judge was alexandre de moraes, who then launched a sweeping campaign to clean up the country’s internet, forcing social networking platforms to remove thousands of posts, often giving them only hours to comply.

it was supposed to be one of the most comprehensive and, in some ways, effective efforts to combat disinformation on the internet. but when moraes’s online crackdown helped thwart a far-right effort to overturn brazil’s election, scholars and commentators began to wonder whether brazil had found a potential solution to one of the most intractable problems in modern democracy.

then last friday,morais banned the social networking platform x in brazil.because its boss, elon musk, ignored a court order to delete the account and closed x's office in brazil. as part of the ban, morais said that internet users who try to circumvent his order to continue using x will face fines of nearly $9,000 (about 64,000 yuan) per day, which is more than the average brazilian earns in a year.

overdone?

it is moraes' boldest move yet, and has even many of his supporters worried whether brazil's experiment in combating fake news has gone too far.

“i used to be very supportive of him,” said david nemer, a brazilian media professor who studies brazil’s response to disinformation at harvard university’s berkman klein center for internet and society.

“but when we saw the decision that moraes made about x, our reaction was: what the hell? this is too much,” he said, using an expletive. “this is a warning to all of us.”

musk ignored morais' orders

brazil has been fighting the internet's disruptive influence on politics for years, culminating in x's current fate.this illustrates the trap a country faces when deciding what to say online: do too little and allow online chatter to undermine democracy; do too much and restrict citizens’ lawful speech.

other governments around the world are likely to watch closely as they debate whether to wade into the complex work of regulating speech or leave it to increasingly powerful tech companies whose interests rarely align with a country’s politics.

for a long time, the united states largely stayed out of the debate, letting tech companies police themselves and each other. but this year, the united states changed its approach and passed a law to ban tiktok unless it was sold to a government-approved buyer. tiktok has filed a lawsuit challenging the law as unconstitutional.

the eu passed sweeping legislation in 2022 requiring social networks to follow specific rules on what they can publish. the move comes just days after france charged russian-born entrepreneur pavel durov with multiple counts for failing to prevent illegal activity on its messaging service telegram.

but few democratic governments have taken such drastic measures as brazil.ban x outright and threaten fines for those who continue to use it.

absurd, extreme

jameel jaffer, executive director of the knight first amendment institute at columbia university, called the move "ridiculous and dangerous."

“what’s really disturbing is that more and more non-democratic governments are able to justify their actions by using the practices of democratic governments,” he said. “when it comes to addressing privacy issues or disinformation issues, if there are more limited-impact ways to address them, governments should use those.”

carlos affonso souza, a brazilian internet law professor, said the order to block x was "the most extreme judicial decision made by a brazilian court in the 30-year history of internet law." but he added that brazil had to do something after musk had so publicly and explicitly flouted multiple court orders.

“it is not for companies to decide whether a judicial ruling is appropriate,” sousa said.“companies must litigate rather than decide not to comply.”

morais

fábio de sá e silva, a professor at the university of oklahoma who studies brazil, said the ban was a powerful response to multinational technology companies that sometimes believe they are above the laws of countries, especially poor ones.

“the whole world is looking at brazil right now and seeing some steps being taken there to fight back,” silva said, “and that might encourage some other countries to do the same.”

judges' approval rating drops

however, there are signs that even justice morais himself thinks he has gone too far. last friday, he first ordered apple and google to ban the download of apps that provide vpn services. however, the move quickly sparked a strong backlash in brazil. three hours later, morais amended his order to drop this requirement for apple and google.

however, moraes retained a threat to fine anyone who continued to use x in brazil via a vpn."this move is absolutely authoritarian and there is no clear legal provision allowing it," said thiago amparo, a prominent brazilian lawyer and newspaper columnist who supports morais.

the head of brazil's national bar association said on friday that the organization would ask brazil's supreme court to review the measure regarding fines.

morais' popularity has fallen in brazil as the country reels from a tense 2022 election when then-president jair bolsonaro used social media to sow doubts about the fairness of brazil's voting system without evidence, and he ordered social networks to delete some of his posts.

brazil's supreme court windows broken by bolsonaro supporters in 2023

after bolsonaro lost the election, thousands of his supporters blocked highways, camped outside military bases and eventually stormed brazil's congress and supreme court in an attempt to trigger a military takeover. in response, moraes ordered the social network to block dozens of high-profile accounts that questioned the vote or sympathized with the attempted rebellion, some of which belonged to federal lawmakers.

but since then, as the political temperature has cooled, judge moraes has continued to issue court orders requiring social networks to remove accounts. leaked copies of the orders show that they are confidential and do not explain how an account violates the law.

“morais’ actions are largely legal, based on the need to protect the constitution,” said mariana valente, a lawyer and director of the brazilian think tank internet lab.“but obviously there is concern that this situation will continue.”

she believes that all judges of the brazilian supreme court should make a ruling on morais' order to ban x as soon as possible. "it is crucial to create legitimacy for such an extreme decision," she said. on monday, the judges of the brazilian supreme court voted unanimously in favor of morais' ban.

morais continued to cite threats to democracy as the reason for his actions. in his order friday, he said musk's refusal to comply with the order to suspend his account "poses an extremely serious risk to brazil's municipal elections in october."

brazilian media professor nemer believes that morais "established a state of exception (a state or judicial system in a critical moment)", "but this is a permanent state of exception, which is not good for any form of democracy." (author/xiao yu)

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