A group of high-profile free speech advocates including government officials, journalists, and academics have signed a letter to Brazil condemning the government’s censorship of X, formerly Twitter.
Last month, Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered that X be suspended in Brazil after the social media platform resisted demands to censor certain political accounts.
The judge’s decision banned Brazilians from using the social media platform owned by Elon Musk.
X responded to the judge’s decision in a statement, accusing the judge of illegally ordering the social media platform to “censor his political opponents,” including “a duly elected Senator and a 16-year-old girl.”
“Unlike other social media and technology platforms, we will not comply in secret with illegal orders,” X Global Government Affairs said.
Brazilians using a VPN to access X can be fined nearly $9,000 a day.
In their letter, which was spearheaded by Alliance Defending Freedom, a prominent free speech law firm, the free speech advocates condemned Brazil for “judicial overreach” and “stifling free discourse and violating Brazil’s own constitution, which prohibits ‘[a]ny and all censorship of a political, ideological, and artistic nature.’”
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The open letter to Brazil’s Parliament was signed by five U.S. Attorneys General, former British Prime Minister Liz Truss, Princeton academic Dr. Robert George, author Rod Dreher, and Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon.
Also signing the letter were podcaster Tammy Peterson, who is psychologist Jordan Peterson’s wife, “Twitter Files” journalist Michael Shellenberger, and former Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, among dozens of conservative influencers and other international advocates for free speech.
“If this censorship in Brazil is allowed to persist, it could set a dangerous precedent that quickly spreads,” the letter reads. “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.”
The letter urges the Brazilian government to “restore the free flow of information, and respect the rights of its citizens to express their views without fear of retribution.”
“The courts should immediately lift the ban on the use of X within Brazil,” Jeremy Tedesco, Alliance Defending Freedom’s senior vice president of corporate engagement, said in a statement to The Daily Wire.
“This is unlawful and deprives Brazil’s citizens of their freedoms under their own Constitution,” Tedesco said. “This letter shows that prominent leaders are taking this issue seriously, as this is a dangerous global precedent to set. Freedom of expression is not negotiable, nor is it a privilege — it is the cornerstone of every democratic society. We must defend it whenever it is under threat, whether in Brazil or anywhere else in the world.”
The letter is now open to the public for signing and had more than 1,600 signatures as of Thursday while rapidly gaining more.
