Brazilian Supreme Court orders investigation against Elon Musk

The owner of the social network X, Elon Musk, will be subject to an investigation by the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil, due to opinions issued on censorship of the network in the South American country.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes has pointed out that “social networks are not a lawless land and that they must absolutely respect Brazilian laws”. In this sense, he issued this Sunday, April 7, the order to open an investigation against Musk, “for his attacks on the Brazilian Justice and his threat not to obey determinations to block accounts on the social network.”

The investigation is based on the alleged crimes of “criminal and malicious manipulation” of the social network X, as well as obstruction of Justice. Moraes is a member of the Supreme Court “and responsible for a process on the use of social networks for the dissemination of false news and attacks on democracy.”

On April 6, Elon Musk said that in the face of the closure of accounts by the Brazilian judiciary, he would disobey such decisions even if this would trigger fines or force him to close the company in Brazil, as he considers that “the defense of freedom of expression is more important than profits”.

For his part, De Moraes warned X to “refrain from disobeying any court order already issued, or from reactivating any profile whose blocking has already been ordered by this Supreme Court or by the Brazilian Electoral Court.” The daily penalty would be 100,000 reais (about $20,000) for each account that is active on the social network.

Musk’s attitude has been considered by the magistrate as public threat, incitement to crime, obstruction and disrespect for internal justice.

M.Pino

Source: DW

(Reference image source: Unsplash+, in collaboration with Getty Images)

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