Since billionaire Elon Musk endorsed Republican candidate Donald Trump in the US presidential race in July, X, the social media platform owned by Musk, has come under even greater scrutiny. Many critics have accused him of weaponizing the platform for his political goals and using it to promote right-wing politicians he favors.
Amid this scrutiny, Musk's clash with Brazilian authorities has come to the fore. In August, a Brazilian court suspended
Faced with a nationwide ban in one of his largest markets and mounting fines, Musk finally threw in the towel and acceded to the court's demands.
Many on the left in Brazil, the United States and elsewhere celebrated the triumph of the Brazilian state, supporting its actions in the name of “digital sovereignty” and “independence.” While I agree that the enormous influence of social media giants in political affairs must be countered, the approach of the Brazilian authorities is not the way to do it. If anything, such court orders paved the way for indiscriminate state censorship of social media platforms that will do more harm than good to free speech and democracy and just politics.
state censorship
To be clear, X has carried out censorship in other countries before this latest controversy in Brazil, targeting individuals, groups and political movements. It is doubtful that Musk's defiance of the Brazilian court's order arose from concern for the well-being of Brazilians and their right to freedom of expression.
However, censure requests filed by Brazil's Supreme Court have also been problematic. In April, it requested the suspension of accounts belonging to supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro as part of an investigation into “digital militias” that supported the coup attempt in January 2023. The details of this investigation have not been revealed in its entirety.
The court has also filed other previous applications that do not stand up to scrutiny. Documents obtained by the Brazilian press reveal that in 2022, Supreme Judge Alexandre de Moraes had tried to block the X account of popular gospel singer Davi Sacer – a Bolsonaro supporter – for retweeting posts that encouraged protests against Brazilian ministers attending a conference in New York. The same judge ordered the ban of the X accounts of the leftist Workers' Cause Party for criticizing the Supreme Court.
In recent years, Moraes, a conservative who previously administered police repression in Sao Paulo, has consolidated the power to ban unfavorable speech on the Brazilian Internet, as the arbiter and enforcer of what content should be removed as “disinformation.” If his campaign against free speech on social media is left unchecked, there is little to stop him and the judiciary from expanding their censorship powers.
They may be primarily targeting the far right in Brazil at the moment, but this can easily change. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who supported Moraes' actions against X, is currently facing criticism from environmental defenders and political forces to his left. If they organize vigorous opposition to their pro-capitalist agenda, their military police initiatives, and their environmentally destructive policies, then we can expect them too to be subject to social media censorship.
Freedom of expression is necessary for democracy
As American scholar Noam Chomsky and others have documented, a capitalist media system concentrates media ownership to manufacture consent. However, even when the corporate media suppresses important facts and perspectives, if the government supports free speech, the public still has the opportunity to expose falsehoods and express alternative opinions. In this case, dissent is marginalized, rather than banned outright.
However, when the state gets involved, we can easily end up with total censorship of dissent. If a government assumes the role of sole arbiter and authority on matters of “truth,” then it can use this power to silence anyone who questions it. In this way, all media – whether traditional or social – run the risk of effectively becoming state media.
It is true that large social networks have too much power to shape the flow of information. However, defending “digital sovereignty” and challenging digital colonialism cannot mean imposing the government's will to repress political opposition, even if it is far-right.
If there is indeed illegal expression on a social media platform, then it should be prosecuted in court, where the accused receive a fair trial. “Fake news” is a real problem, but if the speech is not illegal, it is not the government's business to remove it from the Internet. There are other mechanisms to combat this problem.
Those of us on the left may view Musk and the far-right politicians he supports, such as Bolsonaro and Trump, as a threat to society and the planet, but normalizing state censorship of politically unfavorable speech in the name of “Digital sovereignty” sets a dangerous precedent. . It creates space for this concept to be exploited to “protect society” against unpopular or controversial views.
Let us remember that we live in a world where 67 countries have anti-LGBTQ laws that criminalize same-sex relationships between consenting adults, while many Western “democracies” weaponize accusations of anti-Semitism to repress the Palestinian solidarity movement. . In Israel, nearly 60 percent of the population favors censoring social media posts sympathetic to Palestinians in Gaza. Should governments have the right to censor posts about LGBTQ rights or the genocide against the Palestinian people, in the name of protecting “national security” and “democracy”?
One person’s “fake news” may be another’s “truth,” which is why states should not be given the authority to censor social media.
Digital sovereignty from below
Opposing government overreach is not to suggest that Musk and X did not also challenge the Brazilian state in highly questionable ways. The entire story is complex and many of the details are hidden from public view.
That said, there are ways to push for genuine digital sovereignty and oppose the overwhelming power wielded by big social media companies that don't involve state sponsorship.
Grassroots activists should push for social media decentralization laws that require interoperability between and within social networks. This would mean that any user of any social network could see and interact with users and content posted by any other network. As a result, companies like X and Meta will no longer have a monopoly on social media publishing.
Interoperability, along with public subsidies and bans on platform-based advertising, can also decommodify the social media landscape, reducing the immense profits that large social networks are making.
Social media platforms or their members could support and select a variety of independent fact-checking organizations and tools to contain the spread of propaganda and disinformation.
In addition to these changes, the left needs a stronger vision and strategy to decolonize the global digital economy. I have suggested a digital technology deal as a model that would phase out private ownership of computing and knowledge media as part of a sustainable digital degrowth agenda.
Like the environmental crisis, the Internet is largely borderless and digital sovereignty cannot be achieved within a single country. The urgent need for drastic change in the digital ecosystem requires grassroots internationalist activism that targets the American tech empire at its core, as well as the system of digital capitalism and colonialism that operates in each country.
Authoritarian censorship disguised as “digital sovereignty” is not the way forward.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
