A standoff between Elon Musk and Brazil escalated on Sunday when a Supreme Court judge opened an inquiry into the billionaire after Musk said he would reactivate accounts on the social media platform X that the judge had ordered blocked.
Musk, the owner of X and a self-declared free speech absolutist, has challenged a decision by Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordering the blocking of certain accounts. He has said X, formerly known as Twitter, would lift all the restrictions because they were unconstitutional and called on Moraes to resign.
Neither Musk, X nor Brazilian authorities have disclosed which social media accounts were ordered blocked. X first posted about the order to block on Saturday but it was not immediately clear when the order was issued.
Moraes is investigating “digital militias” that have been accused of spreading fake news and hate messages during the government of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro and is also leading an investigation into an alleged coup attempt by Bolsonaro.
Not really. All extremists should have severely limited platforms to spread their hate in, and who else would see to that, if not democratically elected officials? Even if not democratically elected, I would personally trust almost any even remotely democratic government’s official to enforce something like that than to trust in some edgelord billionaire twat like Musk to do anything other than go the other way and signal boost that extremism instead.
And since I believe this, it would be hypocritical of me to criticize Brazil for this very thing, especially if a far-right populist like Bolsonaro (or anyone Musk likes for that matter) is involved.
But you might hold different views. And fair enough. But I firmly believe we should not give platforms to extremists or traitorous assholes, period. And should work to actively limit that, instead.
I.e I would not like to see, for example, ISIS leaders sharing their beheading videos on any social media platform. By that same logic, I would not like any other kind of extremism there either. I can’t just cherry-pick which kind of extremism I like to be limited and banned. If I believe that there exists entities or influences I would not like to spread, I should accept that those influences exist outside of my personally agreed views of what should be limited.