Lula’s Brazil: A Cautionary Tale for Free Speech in the West
25th May 2024
In a recent hearing before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski warned of an escalating trend of censorship in countries once considered bastions of free speech. He cited examples such as France, where the government has cracked down on so-called “hate speech,” and Germany, where social media companies face hefty fines for failing to remove “illegal content” within 24 hours. Australia, Canada, and New Zealand have also introduced controversial laws that could stifle free expression.
But perhaps the most egregious example of this troubling trend is Brazil. According to Elon Musk, no country where X (formerly Twitter) operates experiences a worse state of censorship than Brazil, a nation until recently regarded as the largest liberal democracy in the Southern Hemisphere. Since 2019, the powerful Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, now infamous, has been conducting his investigation dubbed the “Fake News Probe.” This probe has targeted hundreds of individuals, most recently including Elon Musk himself, for allegedly spreading “disinformation.”