Brazil’s CENSORSHIP Of Elon Musk And X Is AUTHORITARIAN: Michael Shellenberger

[Music] the Brazilian government and Elon Musk have been in a feud it began when a Brazilian judge Alexandra de Morales ordered Regulators to ban access to the social media platform X after musk refused to appoint a legal representative in the country but the feud didn't stop there Brazil then said If X didn't comply it would block starlink the musk owned satellite company this is is a crucial tool for tens of thousands of Brazilians in remote areas in the Amazon rainforest Starling said it would not comply with a nationwide ban on X calling it illegal but now the satellite provider has reversed course and agreed to block billionaire musks media site X in the Latin American Nation author and journalist Michael shellenberger is here with us to discuss what's happening in Brazil we're also going to talk about Germany where the far R has won a state election for the first time since 1945 Michael always great to have you on and I know you're paying close attention to the situation in Brazil uh you know you cover um threats to free speech particularly Free Speech online in variety of other countries what is the situation in Brazil hey thanks for having me on Robbie um it's a bad situation I mean I'm sort of shocking for me I lived there 30 years ago as a you know when I was in college I love the country I love the people you know it was a country that had a very Progressive Constitution it fought against a military dictatorship from 19 64 to 1985 the truth is that Brazil's now a dictatorship I mean it that may sound like hyperal but the fact of the matter is you basically have two people president Lula and the Supreme Court Justice Alesandra joris who are making up laws as they go along they're arbitrarily enforcing laws they're persecuting their political enemies they just banned acts I mean they now join China Iran North Korea as countries that have fully banned the social media platform it's a sh I mean I personally because I did the Twitter files Brazil I'm under criminal investigation in Brazil and the Attorney General of Brazil has recommended that the Supreme Court prosecute me it's not going to stop me from flying down there tomorrow uh but uh it's a it's a shocking turn of events that Brazil is a very important country it's the sixth largest country by size and it's worth noting that the tactics that they've been using have been endorsed by KLA Harris and Tim Walls both the censorship of election information that they disapprove of the deplatforming of their political opponents and then crossplatform banss meaning that the Brazilian government when they want to ban somebody they demand that they be banned from every social media platform which which is basically career death for politicians and journalists all of us who make our livings on social media so it's an extremely it's a very extreme and troubling situation and I think it now turns to the public to Rally in support of free speech and the restoration of democracy what do you make of Lula's comments that the world isn't obliged to put up with billionaire Elon musk's commentary or his social media site and the misinformation he pushes on it just because you know he is a billionaire and he's bought access to these people of course the courts have found that misinformation and far-right accounts especially surrounding Brazil's elections is the reason they deem the app not safe for people to use because they see it as being used as a tool to undermine democracy by Elon Musk who himself said we will coup whoever we want in reference to Bolivia um well I'm not sure about that last quote I don't know the context of it but I mean the great thing about social media platforms is that you can block people that you don't like so the Supreme Court Justice and the president of Brazil are can easily block Elon Musk they don't have to listen to Elon Musk what is a violation of free speech is deciding that other people can't listen to Elon Musk um and block him I don't really think that uh the the net worth of somebody really matters to you know their free speech rights X happens to be owned by Elon Musk there's a new story out today in the New York Times of Brazil which is the Folia of s Paulo where they report that morice sought to crack down on X in Spring of 2023 uh just because Elon Musk had bought it so another case of arbitrary enforcement the other thing that many people have pointed out is that the technical reason for Banning X is because it had no legal representation in Brazil and that's because they the ex closed its Brazil office fearing that its staff would be arrested well when the president pres Lula announced that he was leaving X for other social media platforms the top social media platform he named was Blue Sky well blue sky has no legal representation in Brazil either so you're seeing arbitrary and selective enforcement of the laws it's important to remember that the Brazilian Constitution has a specifically very strong statement in support of free speech for social political issues it's true that there's more caveats to speech in Brazil than there are in the United States but on the issue of political speech it's they have equally strong protections and and again you know free speech like in Brazil like every else in the world has traditionally been the the demand of the left including of President Lula at when he fought against the dictatorship in the 1970s and 80s they were fighting censorship so to see you know leftists off sensibly leftists and liberals demanding censorship it's quite a shock it's very disappointing I think it's important to point out too that even moderate voices in Brazil including uh many people in the media that had been calling for more censorship they themselves recognized that this is an extreme act and um and really is a clear violation of the law and of the Constitution and always ends up putting the social media companies uh even ones that are not run by Elon Musk in the difficult position of deciding well you know how much do we want to comply do we want to then not provide our service because we can only provideed under circumstances that we think are morally wrong but is then better or worse for the people you know the decision whether to take down starick for instance something that the people uh I mean people all over the world um rely on for their for their livelihoods you know do we should we compromise to make that available there you know these are decisions that Google has had to make with respect to China other social media companies have had to make with respect to uh the Middle East um and and right now many social media companies are going to have to make with respect to Europe as EU bureaucrats uh increasingly sound like they want to assert the right to determine again what is misinformation what is hate speech what is all of that you know what is your advice not specifically even to Elon but just to the heads of social media companies we heard from Mark Zuckerberg recently that he regrets going along with what the US government told him to do during covid and that if that happened again he indicated he would be a lot more um skeptical of the of the the soft pressure you know not the direct it wasn't direct orders but soft pressure that did have an effect on on moderation you know what do you think the heads of social media companies how should they respond to these kinds of things you know it's such a hard question honestly and I I I I don't really feel like I can say what I would do if I were you know a multi-billionaire head of a social media company I really feel like it would be sort of disingenuous and I don't provide advice to social media you know platform heads what I will say though is that um there are ways around these bands uh that vpns which you know podcasters and others have been advertising for years you never quite knew why you needed one now you really need one in Brazil it allows you to get around the ban of course it's illegal to access X using a VPN you know the problem of course is that even if like Europe were to shut down X and the whole world let's say shut down X except for maybe the United States the social media companies have no way to accept advertising at that point because it would be illegal to advertise on X but nonetheless I mean I mean what's really no one's really talked about here which is very interesting is that you know starlink which is this elon's you know Elon musk's satellite internet company combined with ax basically allows would allow for a free speech platform to potentially evade governments now of course they could try to you know freeze elon's Elon musk's Assets in the United States or or in Europe or somewhere else I mean that was shocking you know they they froze the bank accounts of starlink in Brazil even though starlink is a separate company from Ax in Brazil as you mentioned in the opening monologue you know Starling today just announced that it was going to block ax the social media platform that Elon owns so it's a it's a really strange you know environment I mean one I would just observe that like the power of the state you know and the power of States working together to engage in censorship was so powerful that they were able to force one of the richest men in the world Mark Zuckerberg to engage in unconscionable censorship on Co which he apologized for and on the hunter B laptop which he apologized for apparently only Elon Musk level of wealth over $200 billion is enough to allow you to stand up to the state but I think even that has limits so I think we're in a very Dynamic environment um obviously we all want you know all of us that love Free Speech want musk to stand strong but at the end of the day I do think you still need a free speech movement to be out in the streets and you know on the airwaves and online demanding free speech because I just think it's too much pressure on a single individual or company to bear and before we I think it's important we be specific about what we're talking about here the judges order that was released on Friday does not say anything about you know we need to end the Free Speech that's had on X actually they're criticizing X for not being a platform of free speech by quote keeping voters away from real and accurate information they have found that X push disinformation about the results of the recent Democrat election that elected Lula a Democratic Socialist to public office uh and so by pushing this information to the people Elon Musk was not a Bastion of free speech he was actually pushing false information to people and depriving their access to the truth and so this is someone who has a track record of supporting this kind of Latin American intervention that's been done by the United States for many years in resp response to this accusation that the US government had organized a coup recently against Evo Morales in Bolivia in order for Tesla to secure the lithium there musk tweeted in response to this we will coup whoever we want deal with it so I think you know to call the Banning of x to end Free Speech would be like saying if we were to shoot down a CIA spy plane thr propaganda out of its windows for people to receive the pamphlets that that would be anti-free speech if that's how you see Free Speech fine but I really see this as an effort to ensure that access to information in the country is not the equivalent of ensuring us back T CPS across Latin America but but Elon but Jessica Elon isn't the US government he's creating a platform where you can get information and you can disagree with the information but like or you can call it propaganda and I don't know that I agree with that characterization but propaganda is speech as well the the government is of Brazil is is the ones trying to say that which information can be available on the platform form like Elon Musk in his personal capacity as a as a user of X pushing information I mean he's just the pushing the information is the engaging in free speech that the government is trying to uh to to to prevent but I'll I'll let you uh feel that one Michael sure I mean I I'll I'll I haven't looked into the the Bolivia statements that's very interesting but yeah I mean I think first of all Elon uh must bought X after or came I mean I think he took control of it after the bra elections so to the extent to which there was misinformation on X during the Brazilian elections I don't really think you can blame Elon for that I you know and again it is a platform I mean I personally have been seeing a lot of posts supporting the censorship in Brazil go viral on X and the it's worth pointing out that the Brazilian government the workers party which is the president's ruling party um and the opposition you know journalists and people advoca they're all still on a so people are openly violating the laws and they're going viral so I think if there were some uh if there were some of that censorship going on we would be we would not be seeing those post go viral I mean it's quite shocking I mean you may have seen Mark rufalo Keith Ellison uh you know U Robert R they've all been supporting Brazil and urging more censorship and it's all happening on X so I just think everybody you know I I think that that we just need to get back to this idea that you know we need to we need to only have censorship for things that are clearly illegal like child exploitation and immediate incitement to violence and and just all get used to I mean get used to having social media platforms that allow uh for freedom of speech and for yeah I mean one person's propaganda is a another person's you know honest journalism so I think that where we where we where we landed on this issue in 1789 in the United States with the first amendment is still the right approach and and Brazil is close to having that in the Constitution but um there's enough wiggle room there and there's enough endemic corruption that uh they've become one of the first the first countries in the world to to go down this totalitarian path I gotta leave it there yeah I would just say you know to say that well we see posts from Keith Ellison and others that would be like saying we don't have climate change because we experience many cold days uh we clearly see what's happening in X is is some disinformation around Lula ahead of the October elections in Brazil and so this is someone who would prefer as many US ba backed coups were in the past backed by Major multinational corporation that has interests in the region and so Elon Musk saying well C whoever we want in reference to Bolivia are we to believe his mindset has changed or are we to take him for his word and think that the reason he's pushing this misinformation is because he's unhappy with the leadership in Brazil because the leers brail the kind of exploitation an extraction of resources that we've seen from billionaires and very wealthy people based in the United States imposing their what is the be clear Jessica what is the misinformation that he's pushing here he's been found by the judge in Brazil to be pushing and the government is saying what he is saying is misinformation that's the judge's opinion and what we are saying is that he should be allowed no don't interrupt me don't interrupt meie does make more what you're saying makes no sense what we are saying is that what my belief is he should be allowed to say something and you get to criticize him what the judge is saying is that he doesn't get to say that the judge is saying that you cannot deprive the users of an app where they get news and information of the truth and and make the algorithm be one that does not show that to the people in Brazil and force the Brazilian people when they log on to X to see much more information that is inaccurate about the election to push a Billionaire's political agenda in another country first of all the judge demanded that X ban politicians and journalists permanently including I'll give you one example a politician post was accused of election misinformation by the by the judge morice for posting something about Labor issues the day after the elections and the judge said ban him anyway all this is occurring in secret um X decided it didn't want to carry out those demands they said that these are unconstitutional illegal demands just go look at the ales shandre files which is a new act account to see the details of these cases but the mean what you're I mean I'm not sure if you know what you're defending but you're what they're demanding is that people be banned permanently from the platform now in the case of election information I had this conversation in Brazil it's very important to understand the idea that you should that the government should be able to ban disfavored election information election information it disagrees with in the name that that's election misinformation how would you ever know if the government stole the elections if there's government corruption of Elections you precisely need free speech in order to expose it and this is not a left I should hasten to add it's not a left right thing I mean be very careful what you wish for when you demand censorship because it could end up redounding against the causes you care about we certainly saw that on Pro Palestinian protests over recent months in the United States you know the left has historically been a demanding Free Speech when it's been on the side of marginalized groups now that the left has power it's demanding censorship and I I think that I think we'll all look back on this and and and as Robert F Kennedy famously says you know you look back at history and the good guys are never the ones demanding censorship I I definitely think that's the case here in Brazil yeah I look at this as a a pattern of behavior on behalf of large multinational corporations like x uh we can look at the the coup and in Ecuador and we see that the dullas brothers who were formerly lawyers with Sullivan and Cromwell who represented United Fruit Company then they came into office in the state department and they orchestrated a coup they made it seem like there was civil unrest in the country through the spread of propaganda casting doubt as to whether or not the democratically elected leader that question the land ownership of United Fruit Company they owned a significant swath of the arable land there they said it's not okay that you're exploiting our labor and owning all of our land for what for profit back home in the United States This Is Our Land and it should be used by the people of Ecuador and for our benefit and by saying that he got the attention of the US state department because they were in cahoots with these guys who are lawyers representing multinational corporations like United Fruit Company who is one of their clients and so this idea that we should believe Elon Musk a billionaire who has received billions of dollars of government subsidies who has a close Rel reltionship with the Pentagon through his work with SpaceX that he just has a benevolent intention for his work in Latin America and pushing this information so I think the Brazilians have a right to have media companies that are based within their country's borders I don't think very rich guys all around the world should have the right to impose their beliefs on people in other countries it's not Jessica you can first of all you can mute Elon and if in terms of the CIA but the point is he owns the app Michael he runs the algorithm but you're not but you can you you're not you're not obliged to even follow any of the posts on the foru recommendation page you can just follow your own people and just if you're concerned about US Government involvement the US government through Aid and the national Dom of democracy has been funding the groups demanding censorship in Brazil so if your concern is US imperialism the imperialists in Brazil are on the side of censorship they're on the side of the Lula government just go look at the national down democracy's web page on Brazil it's Grant after Grant after grant to groups that are demanding censorship so I I went to Nicaragua when I was 17 I've been opposed to imperialism my entire life that's why I went to Latin America and lived in Brazil I'm against us imperialism and that's why you should be against uh censorship in Brazil censorship is never the tool of the good guys anybody that wants to censor their opponents is they want to do so for power censorship is never about the truth it's always about power um so I share your concern about us imperialism and that's why I'm for free speech so if Elon Musk wasn't preventing access to the articles about the election that were considered the truth I would maybe understand that if this was a platform where all of the information was accessible I would get that this is a free speech concern but I don't see the National Endowment for democracy and usaid as more of an arm of us imperialism than I see America's largest multinational corporation to which Elon Musk is the head of but Jessica the Brazilian government is the one demanding the takeown of content like that is if your problem is content not being available it is the Brazilian government saying these accounts and this content can't be on the platform like that is that is the obvious they're asking for balanced content they're asking for the information but that's not free speech the government deciding what is Balan and what should be on the platform is not alith but Jessica no but there's no no one's even alleged that Elon Musk is censoring disfavored information yes they have that's what was in the judge's original ruling released Friday Michael the the the ruling I mean there what was the evidence that he cited that there was something that Elon Musk had censored the the court documents about what precisely has been censored is not there what he said in his statement quote you can't say that to the effect of he's taking things down or not the judge wrote In his original ruling that Elon Musk on X had allowed the massive spread of disinformation hate speech and attacks on the Democratic rule of law VI allowed information voters away from real and accurate information right he is not accused of taking down inform he's accused of allowing information the government doesn't want on the site that is the crime if he ensures that the only information that is seen is information of the far right and that is false and that the information ISR on your feed Robbie Jessica he's there's literally no one has presented any evidence and the judge hasn't even presented any evidence of Elon Musk censoring information what you were describing just then as a rhetorical flourish where he's suggesting that somehow there's there's more right-wing content and that somehow is preventing people from seeing the content that he likes but literally in all of the record here and all of the complaints the whole legal history go read my Twitter files which went through years of this the demands are to ban people to censor information it's not a demand that that X stop censoring people so I think you've got it a little twisted and I encourage you to go back and read the Twitter fil no what's happened here is they demanded that there be a a court-ordered legal representative of X in Brazil that they go over how the website runs to ensure that it is not favoring false information over true information and Elon Musk was unwilling to do that so they said okay if you're unwilling to have a fair app where access to information is not biased then you can't have X operate in Brazil this idea that this all boils down to the judge's word word versus Elon musk's word is a is a false accounting of what's going on here I'm not suggesting that I'm suggesting that the record is very clear that the the judge has repeatedly demanded that people be banned and censored he has presented no he's not even said that that X has censored people he's saying that they haven't censored people at all and they need to censor them and that's been the whole and ban them and and that they'd be banned across all social media platforms so this idea that the government's going to work with the social media platform to be fair that's that's just double speak for censorship all right we got I see censorship I don't think people have a right or or people should be required to use Elon musk's app or see his view of the world well they they're not require to they could just log off the government is the one doing the requiring Jessica it's like we've gone wrong we've gone around on this so many times now Michael we appreciate you uh sticking it out for an extra long conversation on this subject hope to see you again thanks for having me thanks for having me [Music]