Thread by @ggreenwald

A fascinating and important war between Brazil and Google:

Lula wants a law to regulate social media, punish them for hosting "disinformation" and "hate speech."

Google is campaigning against it.

Lula's Justice Minister is threatening criminal action against Google for that.

The proposed law does much more than just allow this kind of censorship. It also governs profits between media and Big Tech (Brazil's huge media corporations are campaign as hard in favor of the law).

But this is the law I've been warning about: the kind in UAE and Singapore.

Yesterday, a CNN Brasil host claimed she was being censored by Twitter for supporting this law. Sleeping Giants Brasil (yes, it's there) claimed the same. Lula's Justice Minister cited it, vowed criminal investigations.

It was all false: just Twitter's global tech problem.

This matters so much beyond Brazil because it's the first attempt in the democratic world to implement state "regulations" of internet speech this extreme. Europe also wants it and is using Brazil as a test case. And, of course, US Dems want it, too.

greenwald.locals.com/post/3585012/n…

My thread in Portuguese on all of this is here:

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1653348731347927043

Sorry for so many Portuguese tweets today but the law the Brazilian government wants to pass is genuinely dangerous, and the behavior of both the state and the corporate media (100% in favor) is infuriating.

We'll report on it tonight on @SystemUpdate_, live at 7pm ET.

A @CNNBrasil reporter, @DanielaLima_, went on air live to claim Twitter was censoring her tweets because she supports this law. Sleeping Giants did the same. Brazil's Justice Minister re-tweeted it, vowing criminal investigations.

The whole story was laughably false, disproven.

Every tweet from these journalists and politicians who claimed Twitter was censoring them yesterday has a Community Note attached, with a Reuters report showing it happened to thousands: due to Twitter's tech failures.

They just ignore it, won't correct it. It's maddening.

Brazil's Supreme Court justice who has become such an extreme censor that even the Western press objected, Alexandre de Moraes, just ordered the executives of Google, FB and Spotify to Brazil's FBI-equivalent to be interrogated on their opposition to the proposed internet law.

All of Brazil's largest media outlets are spouting non-stop propaganda in favor of this internet control bill. They want to bar the internet as a means to oppose them, and will receive ample profit.

But the state is all but criminalizing opposition to the law by tech companies.

This is a fascinating but deeply alarming war right now between the Brazilian government and social media (Google/FB/Twitter).

I don't think anything like this has happened before. The war to take away the internet as a means of dissent is very real, and is coming to you.