Suspension of X in Brazil: Censorship or Defense of the Rule of Law?
15th of July 2025
Carla Watanabe, JD candidate, Brazilian Institute of Education, Development and Research
&
Marcio Cunha Filho, JD, University of Brasília, Professor at the Brazilian Institute of Education, Development and Research
In August 2024, Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court (STF) ordered the suspension of Twitter, now X, across the country. Immediately, far-right congressmen filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), claiming that the STF was imposing unnecessary censorship in Brazil. But was the suspension of Twitter in Brazil an authoritarian act of online censorship? We argue that the suspension was a drastic but necessary measure to safeguard citizens; the deputy’s allegations must be understood through the lens of Brazil’s recent socio-political context.
The election of President Jair Bolsonaro in 2018 was marked by the rampant spread of mis- and dis-information. In October 2018, the media exposed an orchestrated campaign by Bolsonaro supporters involving the mass dissemination of messages via WhatsApp, funded by illegal campaign donations. These messages spread falsehoods against opponents using illegally obtained segmented phone data and followed a strategy similar to the Cambridge Analytica scandal in the UK.
After the election, the malicious campaign strategy was not disbanded, instead shifting targets, for example targeting academics. Soon the Supreme Court itself became a major target of these attacks. Following rulings that displeased the new government, in January 2019, bots and superspreaders began coordinated attacks against the justices and families of the STF, as well as journalists. Media outlets aligned with President Bolsonaro amplified these baseless claims. During his inauguration, Bolsonaro directly fueled tensions with calls to “liberate the country” from “old institutions.” In March 2019, personal information of justices’ families was leaked, leading to calls for protests outside their homes and explicit threats to their lives, all framed in conspiratorial language.
In response, the STF’s Chief Justice launched Judicial Inquiry 4781, dubbed the “Fake News Inquiry”, and appointed Justice Alexandre de Moraes as rapporteur to lead the police investigation. Throughout 2019 the Federal Police identified patterns in these attacks, uncovering hierarchical structures distributing identical texts across countless profiles, with evidence of financial payments via PIX (Brazil’s instant payment system) to group administrators coordinating the attacks.
In 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the STF ruled in favor of state and municipal autonomy to enact social distancing policies. This stance, contrary to the federal government’s downplaying of the pandemic’s severity, triggered a new wave of cyberattacks against the STF. Bolsonaro himself said that the Supreme Court sought to “break the country.” On 19 April 2020, with Bolsonaro present, a protest in Brasília featuring banners which demanded that the STF’s closure and the return of AI-5 – an act that curtailed freedoms during Brazil’s military dictatorship). Amid escalating threats to the rule of law, Inquiry 4828 (“Inquiry on Anti-Democratic Acts“) was launched shortly after the protest to investigate the origins and funders of these movements.
The inquiry revealed that the profiles spreading fake news during the election had also organized anti-democratic protests, and the businessmen funding fake news websites were also financing transport and infrastructure for demonstrations calling for the overthrow of Brazil’s democracy. In May 2020, the Federal Police executed warrants relating to both investigations. Seized phones exposed groups coordinating fake news dissemination and anti-democratic rallies using shared scripts, unified calendars and task divisions. Digital and physical actions were proven inseparable. Later in 2020, investigations found evidence linking the Presidential Office (“Gabinete do Ódio” or “Office of Hate”) to this organization, indicating coordination between the government and anti-democratic actors.
Thus, in April 2021, the STF extended the investigations of the “Digital Militias Inquiry“ to investigate the structure and financing of this organization. A professional hierarchy emerged: funders; ideologues; content managers; bot operators fueled by pseudo-journalistic content; and “influencers”. Between 2021-2022, further investigation revealed “digital militias” relied heavily on social media to spread false information, especially Twitter. In 2021, the STF ordered immediate suspension of fake news accounts and posts, but the platform often took several weeks to comply. New accounts subsequently emerged with identical content, migrating followers and monetization.
In 2022, Elon Musk acquired Twitter (now X). Musk declared “absolute free speech” on the platform and granted amnesty to banned accounts and gutting content moderation teams. Digital militias returned at full strength and attacked Brazil’s electoral system with calls for “armed oversight” of voting by the military.
Sowing distrust in the electoral system began after Bolsonaro’s 2018 election, claiming electoral fraud denied him a first-round victory. Attacks intensified during the pandemic, with coordinated digital assaults on the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) from 2020 onward. The following year, the former president held weekly livestreams alleging voting machines were insecure. On 29 July 2021, he presented a two-hour “proof” of systemic flaws, implicitly threatening to cancel the 2022 elections; senators classified this livestream as a threat to democracy.
The digital militia apparatus was then turned against the electoral system. Ongoing inquiries confirmed the same groups active since 2018 were behind these attacks. In 2022, their operations intensified: Bolsonaro summoned diplomats on 18 July to claim Brazil’s electoral system was untrustworthy, causing international embarrassment. On 7 September, he delivered explicit threats in a speech to supporters who chanted against STF justices. The STF ordered X to immediately block accounts coordinating these actions, but the platform delayed compliance and publicly questioned the order.
After President Lula won the October 2022 election, digital militias gathered thousands of Bolsonaro supporters in camps outside military barracks, contesting results and urging the military to prevent the new government’s inauguration. These efforts culminated first in the invasion of the Federal Police headquarters in mid-December, then an attempted terrorist attack at Brasília Airport by placing dynamite on a 60,000-liter kerosene truck.
The movement peaked on 8 January 2023, when thousands stormed and destroyed Brazil’s congressional, presidential, and judicial buildings, mirroring the U.S. January 6 Capitol riot. Federal Police investigations confirmed X was used as the primary platform to organize and mobilize these acts. Throughout 2023, the STF repeatedly ordered X to immediately block involved accounts, provide user data, and appoint a legal representative in Brazil. X ignored these orders, instead allowing anti-democratic content and monetization to persist.
From January-March 2024, facing non-compliance, the STF imposed daily fines of R$100,000 per profile, blocked advertising revenue, and threatened criminal liability for executives. Musk publicly attacked Justice Moraes, accusing Brazil of “judicial dictatorship” and defied all rulings.
By the first semester of 2024, the Digital Militias Inquiry found that X profited from this criminal organization via engagement, ad revenue, and X Premium monetization. Evidence further revealed ideological dis-alignment in Brazil: X complied with court orders from other countries while systematically challenging rules in Brazil. On 13 August, X closed its Brazil office and refused to appoint a legal representative. After ignoring subpoenas, Justice Moraes ordered X’s nationwide suspension on 30 August 2024, under Brazil’s Internet Civil Framework law. X resumed operations in October 2024 after appointing a legal representative physically located in Brazil, complying with the Supreme Court’s order.
Thus, X’s suspension in Brazil was not abrupt and did not come without warning. The ban was a consequence of many years of investigations substantiating the platform’s central role in enabling attacks to Brazilian democracy: repeated defiance of court orders; refusal to appoint a legal representative; and deliberate protection of actors spreading fake news to overthrow institutions obstructing Bolsonaro supporters’ interests. This suspension was not censorship but a protective measure for Brazil’s rule of law.
The STF’s actions did however draw criticism from Bolsonaro supporters. The situation in Brazil even caused some international institutions to further investigate if freedom of expression was indeed being undermined in Brazil – for example, the special rapporteurs on Freedom of Expression of the OAE visited the country to investigate the situation. However, the court ultimately acted in line with opposing the rise of a “militant democracy” (a term conceptualized by Karl Loewenstein during Nazism’s rise), where democracy must resist authoritarian advances. Brazil’s democracy is young and fragile with a history of institutional ruptures. The 8 January 2023 insurrection—combined with a foiled plot to assassinate Justice Moraes, the elected president, and vice president conspiring to keep Bolsonaro in power—demonstrates the concrete danger posed by these actors. They exploited social media’s speed, rendering traditional legal tools ineffective against these crimes.
In July 2025, President Donald Trump released a letter announcing the imposition of 50% tariffs on all goods originating from Brazil, to begin on 1 August. In the letter, President Trump explicitly mentions that this taxation is being imposed not for economic reasons, but due to what he considers a “witch hunt” against Bolsonaro and his allies. It is important to recognize the connection between this event and the issues raised throughout this text. Despite all the uproar and fallacious arguments—such as the claim that the Brazilian Supreme Court is imposing censorship—it is crucial to expose the actions of Bolsonaro, Trump, and Musk and describe them for what their actions truly are: methods to attack and subvert Brazilian democracy, not legitimate forms of free speech. Brazilian institutions are holding strong, but no one knows if this scenario will persist.