A group of free speech advocates have signed a letter to the government of Brazil, condemning it for censoring X.
The letter comes as Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes called for X to be suspended. Those who continued using the social media platform through a VPN were fined $9,000 USD a day.
Legal group Alliance Defending Freedom led the letter, writing, “We, the undersigned, condemn the recent attack on free speech in Brazil. We have witnessed increasing threats to this fundamental right worldwide over the past year. Brazil’s shutdown of the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), ordered by Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes, represents a dangerous escalation of this troubling trend of global censorship of speech.”
The authors explained that judicial overreach “punishes both the platform and its users, stifling free discourse and violating Brazil’s own constitution.”
Such censorship “extends far beyond Brazil,” the letter says, as the situation serves as a “striking example of a growing trend of censorship by government officials, who are becoming increasingly aggressive in suppressing speech they find objectionable.”
“If this censorship in Brazil is allowed to persist, it could set a dangerous precedent that quickly spreads,” Alliance Defending Freedom wrote. “Recently, other world leaders have expressed pro-censorship sentiments, and there is no quicker path to the demise of democracy than the erosion of free speech.”
Free speech is the “cornerstone of every democratic society,” the authors assert. “We must defend it whenever it is under threat, whether in Brazil or anywhere else in the world.”
The letter, signed by a number of journalists, politicians, five attorneys general, and other free speech figures, has been opened to the general public.
At the time of writing, the letter has 6,101 signatures.
