Episode description

The billionaire owner of the social media platform X, Elon Musk, has been in a prolonged dispute with a Supreme Court Judge in Brazil regarding X’s content moderation practices. Earlier this year, Judge Alexandre de Moraes launched an investigation into X after Musk defied a court order to block accounts that supported former right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro and were accused of spreading misinformation and hate speech.

On Friday afternoon, August 30, following a standoff over an order requiring X to appoint a new legal representative in Brazil, the Judge issued an order to suspend X in the country.

Justin Hendrix spoke to three people following the situation closely in Brazil: Laís Martins, a journalist at the The Intercept in Brazil; Sérgio Spagnuolo, executive director & founder of the data-driven tech news organization Nucleo Journalism; and Dr. Ivar Alberto Hartmann, an associate professor at the Insper Institute of Education and Research in Brazil.