From illegal mining operations to an on-going coup attempt, what is happening between Twitter and Brazil?
Why was Twitter Suspended?
It started when Twitter refused to follow orders from the STF (Federal Supreme Court, headed by the minister Alexandre de Moraes) to take down accounts that spread misinformation during the 2022 elections and participated in the 2023 coup attempt (more on that later). By refusing to cooperate, Twitter infringed laws of national security and accumulated a fine equivalent to U$3,2 million.
Musk also refused to pay the fine. STF threatened to arrest the Twitter representatives in Brazil if the fine didn't get paid, which caused Musk to remove Twitter offices from Brazil. It goes without saying that having a company operating in Brazil without any legal representatives is another crime. Moraes gave Twitter 24h to elect a representative in the country, another offer that Musk refused. After this point, the suspension of Twitter was inevitable, and with it, the 20 million Brazilian users. The suspension should be lifted when Musk pays his fines and elects a company representative here. Masterful gambit, Elon.
It didn't help that Musk kept sharing epic memes comparing Alexandre de Moraes to Voldemort, and an AI generated image illustrating the Federal Judge behind bars.
Moraes suggested at some point that VPN apps should be taken out of App stores, and that anyone "caught" using a VPN to use Twitter (somehow) would be fined to an equivalent of U$8k. The measure was most likely taken to prevent big accounts - such as that of Brazilian politicians - to use the website. He later backtracked on both decisions.
All this debacle had some people talk about a supposed "judicial dictatorship". This term has a history.
Dictatorship??!!??
So, a bit of historical context.
2022 was a presidential election year in Brazil. The polls were disfavorable to Bolsonaro (the ex-military, far-right president at the time), indicating that Lula (a social democrat, ex-president from 2003-2011) had chances of winning it in the first turn. Bolsonaro's Brazilian military instincts kicked in and he summoned his ministers to plan a coup beforehand WHILE FUCKING FILMING THEMSELVES DOING IT.
The ministers were hesitant about the idea of a coup, citing mainly the lack of international support they'd have for it. A pitiful attempt at a coup was carried out in January 8th 2023, copy and pasting US' January 6th "insurrection", resulting in the partial destruction of government buildings followed by the arrest of the people who participated in it.
Suffice to say, the coup was unsuccessful.
The lesson was learned. Brazil wouldn't be able to support another military dictatorship without international support. Far-right pundits immediately started working towards building that support as soon as Lula got elected. The plan was to frame Brazil as a nation that abandoned democracy to become a left-wing dictatorship. Now every move the government did to enforce it's own laws against hate speech or punish those responsible for the coup attempt, would be denounced as an act of authoritarianism and violation of human rights.
In March this year, Eduardo Bolsonaro (one of Bolsonaro's sons and currently a congressman) lead an informal press release in front of Washington's capitol (he was barred from making a hearing inside the capitol, you see) advocating for American politicians to impose sanctions to Brazil due to it's "Judiciary dictatorship" and "violation of human rights" (read: The imprisonment of the people who trashed the congress buildings during the "coup attempt")
Here's Paulo Figueiredo, vlogger, and the grandson of a Brazilian military dictator, on PragerU spewing out the bullshit that Lula's election was illegitimate. The constant parallels he makes between Brazil and US, as well as the repetition of the mantra at the end "here, like in Brazil" make it a naked attempt to gather sympathy from the American far-right.
The propaganda efforts might be having some effect, since some Republican representatives have been regurgitating Brazilian conservative talk-point verbatim. Here's Maria Elvira Salazar doing just that (hey isn't that Paulo Figueiredo at the end?)
Be suspicious whenever you see the Brazilian dictatorship talking point being spread. It is an on-going attempt to undermine our democracy.
The far-right has a very clear strategy to spread their propaganda, and Twitter had a part in it. From the top 10 most used social medias in Brazil, Twitter was the least popular (losing to Whatsapp, Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Linkedin, Messenger, Kwai and Pinterest). So the objective of the far-right factions working in there was to mainly shape the public opinion of Americans. Elon Musk never says anything about Brazilian law and government that a Bolsonaro supporter hadn't said before in the exact same words. The country's history with Starlink further supports the connection between Elon Musk and the far-right.
Starlink in Brazil
Starlink started it's operations in Brazil as of January of 2022. The only reason why they were able to operate here was because Bolsonaro's government interfered with Anatel (the National Telecommunications Agency) to approve the company's contract despite many irregularities. Musk promoted his company's presence in the country by saying he would bring internet access to 19 thousand schools in remote locations across the Amazon.
From March to July of this year, at least 50 Starlink antennaes were found in illegal mining operations in the Amazon. Starlink refuses to share information about their users even though they have precise data that would allow to identify and localize illegal mining activities; which is worrying because Starlink is the preferred tool of communication of the Amazon organized crime.
No schools have been connected to Starlink as of yet.
In conclusion
Twitter was the main site for many Brazilian artists to share and sell their creations, and it's suspension certainly impacts their lives. These people have the right to be upset; it's getting harder and harder to be an artist every day. But with how Twitter has been run, and it's growing support for nazi-adjacent groups and attacks against our government, I can't say that blocking Twitter was a bad thing.
What is happening to Twitter right now is just one chapter of an on-going narrative dispute, fueled by the desire of some political sections for the rise of the far-right once again. A far-right that has a lot to gain from being able to facilitate the illegal operations of logging and mining in the Amazon, and who can only get to power again by challenging the Brazilian democracy in the American public opinion.
I don't want this blog post to sound like an Alexandre de Moraes apologia. He is not a hero either and he's certainly only doing this to support his own interests; which right now just so happens to coincide with defending Brazilian sovereignty.
I'll echo the sentiments I said in a previous post and say that I hope that Brazil becomes only the first one in a wave of anti-Twitter sentiment across the globe.
