[blackeyeblitzar]

It’s a question of what is legal in each country. The censorship orders in Australia and India and Turkey complied with local laws so X stuck to their policy of following them. I detest censoring and authoritarianism in general, but X has publicly stated their policy is to comply with laws in each area.

One thing I’ll mention: after Musk acquired X in 2022, they were engaged in a lawsuit against the government of India in 2023 to fight censorship orders, that they ultimately lost (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-66083645). Not that it matters because India ended up passing various regulations (legally) that give their agencies various powers to censor.

Note that in Brazil, no new legislation or constitutional amendment was passed that would give this one Supreme Court justice this power to censor, ban, or arrest. Also note that the orders aren’t from the Supreme Court but one person sitting on it, Alexandre de Moraes.

[insane_dreamer]

Moraes was granted that authority by the Supreme Court, so it is legal. Whether it's right or wrong is a different question, but Moraes' actions are not "illegal".

Moraes does seem to be acting like an unaccountable little dictator in his fiefdom, which is dangerous. But then again Elon acts like an unaccountable little dictator in his fiefdom, which is also dangerous, so I don't really mind that X is getting banned. I'd feel completely differently if it were Mastodon or even some other commercial network over which a single person doesn't have an iron grip.

[blackeyeblitzar]

> Moraes was granted that authority by the Supreme Court, so it is legal.

This is not exactly true, so let me explain it. Moraes is himself a justice on the Supreme Court. He was not granted authority by it. His own claim actually acknowledges that no new laws (either legislation or constitutional amendments) were passed to give him this power. Instead his claimed power rests on something more confusing and again, illegal. Brazil has two top level courts - an electoral court and a Supreme Court, for simplification and use of common international language. These two are separate courts and are supposed to have separation of powers. When de Moraes was president of the electoral court, he proposed in October 2022 to the electoral court that he be granted the unilateral power (as a single person) to remove online content as part of his role in the other court, the federal court (where he was inaugurated in 2017) - this is all easy to verify and there are many sources (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_de_Moraes).

Obviously, it is a total violation of the separation of powers for him to sit on one court and grant himself powers that he can use through the other court. Because no new legislation is involved, it also violates the fundamental role of the judicial system, since the creation of laws is part of the legislative power in Brazil.

> But then again Elon acts like an unaccountable little dictator in his fiefdom, which is also dangerous, so I don't really mind that X is getting banned

I don’t condone Elon’s erratic behavior. However, I think generally he has been more on the side of free speech and civil liberty than the previous leadership of Twitter. For example, after Musk’s acquisition, Twitter tried hard to stop censorship in India through a lawsuit against the government that they battled in 2023. They did not succeed, in part because India passed laws that legalized censorship unfortunately. But at least Twitter/X tried. As far as I can tell, they have been consistent with their public policy of following local laws when it comes to content moderation and censorship. But in Brazil’s case, the orders appear to be illegal (example: https://x.com/AlexandreFiles/status/1829979981130416479/phot...).

Whatever his demeanor is though, he is a private individual, and his actions matter less than actions of the state. Alexandre de Moraes is a Supreme Court justice. Whether Elon antagonizes him or not, he should remain neutral, stick to the law as written, and lean in favor of civil liberties as a default anytime there is something controversial or ambiguous.

[insane_dreamer]

Supreme Court has since confirmed Moraes decision re X, so that settles it.

Also, whether some action breaks your idea of separation of powers doesn’t make it illegal (that’s for the judiciary to determine). You may think it’s I democratic but that’s a separate matter (I think a lot of things in the US are undemocratic, especially considering we elected a anti-democracy corrupt businessman as president and may elected him again)

[nateglims]

Courts are part of the legal system in most of the world. It’s kind of sovcit to say otherwise.