Gilmar Mendes says that Moraes “fills the Brazilian nation with pride”

Minister Gilmar Mendes, dean of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), reacted this Wednesday (10) to criticism from the owner of network X, Elon Musk, towards minister Alexandre de Moraes, whom he called a “dictator” for carrying out acts of “censorship” against political opponents of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In a statement at the beginning of the session, he said that Moraes “fills the Brazilian nation with pride, demonstrating, at the same time, prudence and assertiveness in carrying out the multiple procedures adopted to defend democracy”. Previously, he said that Moraes, “has been a victim of unfair physical and virtual attacks for a long time” and that “it is necessary to reject with absolute vehemence statements tending to indicate and inflate non-compliance with court orders” – over the weekend, Musk said it would reactivate profiles of users blocked by order of Moraes on X (formerly Twitter).

The posts led Moraes to include the businessman in the “digital militias” investigation, for alleged “intentional instrumentalization” of the social network by detractors of the STF and ministers. He accused Musk of committing crimes of disobedience, obstruction of justice and incitement to crime. On Monday (8), the president of the STF, Luís Roberto Barroso, sided with Moraes and said that any and all companies operating in Brazil are subject to the Federal Constitution, the laws and decisions of the Brazilian authorities” and that judicial decisions “ they may be the subject of appeals, but never of deliberate non-compliance”.

Gilmar Mendes also defended compliance with the STF’s judicial decisions, which, according to him, “can be analyzed and criticized, but can never be intentionally violated”. In most of the speech, he defended greater regulation of social networks, as, according to him, European countries have already done.

“When revisiting recent national history, it does not take much effort to conclude that the Internet Civil Framework currently in force — with which this Court has a scheduled meeting soon — has often proven incapable of preventing abuses of all forms. lucky,” he said. “I have long been convinced that, only with the drafting of new legislation, it will be possible to more securely establish the rights and duties of all those who are willing to act on the internet, without leaving room for aggression, lies, scams and other evils that have plagued the country in recent years”, he added afterwards.

In force since 2014, the Marco Civil da Internet establishes that social network providers can only be held responsible for the content published by their users if they disobey a court order to remove what a judge considers illegal, offensive or harmful to someone. The ministers defend that, on their own initiative, platforms also remove, without the need for a prior court decision, texts, videos and audios that offend or incite threats to institutions, have a discriminatory nature or encourage violence.

Since 2020, Bill 2630 has been pending in Congress, to oblige them to remove materials like this immediately, under penalty of being punished with fines and compensation. Technology companies oppose it, arguing that they tend to remove a large amount of material, even legal material, so that they do not run any risk of punishment. This Tuesday (9), the president of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), said that the proposal will be redone before going to a vote in the plenary – an attempt to approve the current text was made last year, without success.

Also this Tuesday, minister Dias Toffoli said that he will release for judgment by the end of June an action whose decision, by the STF, could also force networks to remove content that represents “attacks” against institutions – the majority of the ministers understands that the networks failed to prevent, for example, calls for the demonstration on January 8, 2023, in Brasília, which resulted in the invasion and depredation of the STF, Congress and the Palácio do Planalto, which they consider an attempted coup and the abolition of democracy.

“We need to be clear about what is happening before our eyes: the democratic horizon designed by the 1988 Constitution was the object of a cunning plot that intended to subjugate the established powers, against the popular will expressed at the polls in the last elections. The intended uprising had ample space for idealization and even execution on social media, without the means of control in force at the time having been able to prevent the sedition”, summarized Gilmar Mendes in his statement.

He also aligned himself with Moraes in rebutting critics of the STF, who point out censorship and violation of freedom of expression in his decisions. “In the republican context, freedom of expression is not to be confused with libertinism, nor does it allow the dissemination of hate speech, intentionally (and very well paid) propagators of fake news, often aimed at undermining the very institutional stability of the Brazilian nation, putting into check the basic pillars of our democracy”, said Gilmar Mendes.

“Behind the harmful rhetoric that there would be unlimited freedom in the virtual environment, what exists is mere vested interest, aimed at obtaining profitable profits at the expense of disseminating untruths with increasingly clear political purposes, as can be seen from the investigations carried out ”, Gilmar Mendes then added.

After Gilmar Mendes’ speech, Moraes thanked him and repeated the phrase, written in his decisions, that “freedom of expression is not freedom of aggression” nor “freedom to defend tyranny”. “Maybe some aliens don’t know, but they started to learn and became aware of the courage and seriousness of the Brazilian Judiciary.”