“Latin American countries have secret courts that can order companies to quietly take things down.” Mark Zuckerberg’s mention of the region, in his announcement to end Meta’s fact-checking efforts in the US among other measures, was by no means a casualty. It’s a direct message to us and shows that the eyes of the most powerful men in the world are on our country – Brazil.
Last year, X was banned by the Brazilian Supreme Court for 40 days because of a law that Elon Musk refused to comply with: any international company operating here must have a legal representative in the country. When X felt the impact of losing one of the largest and most active user bases worldwide, Musk surrendered.
In addition to big tech moguls, Donald Trump also has his eyes on us. In the final days of 2024, he filed a request to the Supreme Court to pause a law that would ban TikTok in the US. Brazil once again emerged, this time to ground the president-elect's claim. Echoing Zuckerberg and Musk, Trump adopted the false censorship narrative spread by Brazilian far-right politicians linked to former president Jair Bolsonaro to distort the reasons that led to the temporary ban of X.
