00:00Brazil became the second country in South America in the last two months to ban the social media platform X.
00:06Our correspondent Brian Meir has more on this topic.
00:10Millions of Brazilians woke up on August 31st in a country which no longer has X
00:15after the Supreme Court ordered the National Telecommunications Agency
00:19to block the social media platform for non-compliance with national legislation.
00:24The move came 12 days after Elon Musk closed X's Brazilian offices
00:29in an attempt to avoid liability in a criminal investigation against the company.
00:35He has to respect the rulings of the Brazilian Supreme Court.
00:38If he wants to, fine, if not, he needs patience.
00:41If it wasn't for this this country would never be sovereign.
00:44Our society doesn't have an inferiority complex where,
00:47just because the guy is American and he yells we get afraid.
00:50No, this guy has to obey our country's laws.
00:53And if the Supreme Court makes a decision, he has to respect it.
00:57If this holds for me, it holds for him too.
01:01When suspects in Brazil's investigation into the failed January 8th, 2023 coup attempt
01:07began to threaten and dox federal agents online,
01:11the Justice Ministry ordered all social media companies to de-platform them.
01:16X not only refused, but company owner Elon Musk personally doubled down on threats against the Supreme Court.
01:23Consequently, on August 6th, the company was charged with obstruction of justice
01:28and issued an $8,000 a day fine for non-compliance with court orders.
01:35The bottom line is that there is nothing new about this.
01:38It's a old kind of conflict between a big multinational corporation and a nation's legal system.
01:44The international corporation is trying to say that it doesn't have to obey a country's laws and court rulings
01:49simply because it doesn't serve its business or political interests.
01:52In this case we know two things.
01:55First, Twitter slash X has a specific vision that the internet should be unregulated.
02:00But also, Musk, the owner of the platform, has a political sympathies that are closely aligned with the Brazilian far right.
02:06Brazil is now the second South American nation to ban X in less than two months.
02:11The Venezuelan government banned the platform in August
02:14after authorities discovered it being used by the far right opposition
02:17to incite nationwide acts of violence during the days following the presidential elections.
02:24Elon Musk is the owner of X.
02:27He's violated all the norms, inciting hatred, fascism, civil war, death.
02:34He's broken Venezuela's laws.
02:37And there are laws in Venezuela.
02:39Let's have respect for our laws.
02:41Brazil's Supreme Court has announced that all X has to do to resume operating
02:46is to comply with a law by re-designating a legal representative in Brazil.
02:52Brian Muir, Telus Sur, Recife.
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