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Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
@shellenberger
Apr 7 • 2 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
BRAZIL IS ON THE BRINK

I’m reporting to you from Brazil, where a dramatic series of events are underway.

At 5:52 pm Eastern Time, today, April 6, 2024, X corporation, formerly known as Twitter, announced that a Brazilian court had forced it to “block certain popular accounts in Brazil.”

Then, less than one hour later, the owner of X, @ElonMusk announced that X would defy the court’s order, and lift all restrictions.

“As a result,” said Musk, “we will probably lose all revenue in Brazil and have to shut down our office there. But principles matter more than profit.”

At any moment, Brazil’s Supreme Court could shut off all access to X/Twitter for the people of Brazil.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Brazil is on the brink of dictatorship at the hands of a totalitarian Supreme Court Justice named Alexandre de Moraes.

President Lula da Silva is participating in the push toward totalitarianism. Since taking office, Lula has massively increased government funding of the mainstream news media, most of which are encouraging increased censorship.

What Lula and de Moraes are doing is an outrageous violation of Brazil’s constitution and the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.

At this moment, Brazil is not yet a dictatorship. It still has elections and the Brazilian people have other means at their disposal to confront authoritarianism.

But the Federal Supreme Court and the Superior Electoral Court are directly interfere in those elections through censorship.

Three days ago I published the Twitter Files for Brazil. They show that Moraes has violated the Brazilian Constitution. Moraes illegally demanded that Twitter reveal private information about Twitter users who used hashtags he considered inappropriate. He demanded access to Twitter's internal data, violating the platform's policy. He censored, on his own initiative and without any respect for due process, posts on Twitter by parliamentarians from the Brazilian Congress. And Moraes tried to turn Twitter's content moderation policies into a weapon against supporters of then-president Jair Bolsonaro.

I say this as an independent and non-partisan journalist. I'm not a fan of either Bolsonaro or Trump. My political views are very moderate. But I know censorship when I see it.

The Twitter Files also revealed that Google, Facebook, Uber, WhatsApp and Instagram betrayed the people of Brazil. If such evidence is proven, the executives of these companies behaved like cowards: they provided the Brazilian government with personal registration data and telephone numbers without a court order and, therefore, violating the law.
When Twitter refused to provide Brazilian authorities with private user information, including direct messages, the government attempted to sue Twitter's top Brazilian lawyer.

When I lived in Brazil in 1992, I was very left-wing. At the time, Lula and the PT's slogans were “Without fear of being happy”.

In recent days, I have spoken to dozens of Brazilians, including professors, journalists and respected lawyers. Everyone tells me they are shocked by what is happening. They told me that they are afraid to speak their mind and that the Lula government is complicit in creating this climate of fear.

Brazil belongs to the Brazilians. It is not my country. As such, there are limits to what I am capable of doing.

But I can say things that many Brazilians do not feel safe saying: Alexandre de Moraes is a tyrant. And the only way to deal with tyrants is to confront them. It is up to Brazil’s senators to confront the tyrant. And it is up to the people of Brazil to demand that their senators do so.
EM PORTUGUES

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Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Apr 7
BRASIL À BEIRA

Este é Michael Shellenberger, e estou reportando a vocês ao vivo do Brasil, onde uma série dramática de eventos está em andamento.
Às 18h52, horário do Sao Paulo a corporação X, anteriormente conhecida como Twitter, anunciou que um tribunal brasileiro a forçou a “bloquear certas contas populares no Brasil”.

Menos de uma hora depois, o proprietário do X, Elon Musk, anunciou que o X desafiaria a ordem do tribunal e suspenderia todas as restrições.

“Como resultado”, disse Musk, “provavelmente perderemos todas as receitas no Brasil e teremos que fechar nosso escritório lá. Mas os princípios são mais importantes do que o lucro.”

A qualquer momento, o Supremo Tribunal Federal poderá bloquear todo o acesso ao X/Twitter para o povo brasileiro.

Não é exagero dizer que o Brasil está à beira da ditadura nas mãos de um ministro totalitário do Supremo Tribunal Federal chamado Alexandre de Moraes.

O presidente Lula da Silva está participando desse impulso em direção ao totalitarismo. Desde que assumiu o cargo, Lula aumentou enormemente o financiamento governamental dos principais meios de comunicação, a maioria dos quais incentiva o aumento da censura.

O que Lula e de Moraes estão fazendo é uma violação escandalosa da Constituição do Brasil e da Declaração dos Direitos Humanos das Nações Unidas.
Neste momento, o Brasil ainda não é uma ditadura consolidada. Vocês ainda têm eleições e outros meios de enfrentar o autoritarismo que já não existem em tiranias mais avançadas.

Mas o Supremo Tribunal Federal e o Tribunal Superior Eleitoral interferem em eleições por meio de censura.

Há três dias eu publiquei os Arquivos do Twitter para o Brasil. Eles mostram que Moraes tem violado a Constituição brasileira. Moraes exigiu ilegalmente que o Twitter revelasse informações privadas sobre usuários do Twitter que usaram hashtags que ele considerou impróprias. Ele exigiu acesso aos dados internos do Twitter, violando a política da plataforma. Ele censurou, por iniciativa própria e sem nenhum respeito ao devido processo, postagens no Twitter de parlamentares do Congresso brasileiro. E Moraes tentou transformar as políticas de moderação de conteúdo do Twitter em uma arma contra os apoiadores do então presidente Jair Bolsonaro.
Digo isso como jornalista independente e apartidário. Não sou fã nem de Bolsonaro nem de Trump. As minhas opiniões políticas são muito moderadas. Mas eu reconheço a censura quando a vejo.

Os Arquivos do Twitter também revelaram que Google, Facebook, Uber, WhatsApp e Instagram traíram o povo do Brasil. Se forem comprovados tais indícios, os executivos dessas empresas comportaram-se como covardes: forneceram ao governo brasileiro dados cadastrais pessoais e números de telefone sem ordem judicial e, portanto, violando a lei.
Quando o Twitter se recusou a fornecer informações privadas dos usuários às autoridades brasileiras, incluindo mensagens diretas, o governo tentou processar o principal advogado brasileiro do Twitter.

Quando eu morei no Brasil em 1992, eu era muito de esquerda. Na época, as palavras de ordem de Lula e do PT eram “Sem medo de ser feliz”.

Nos últimos dias, conversei com dezenas de brasileiros, incluindo professores, jornalistas e advogados respeitados. Todos me disseram que estão chocados com o que está acontecendo. Eles me disseram que têm medo de falar o que pensam e que o governo Lula é cúmplice na criação desse clima de medo.

O Brasil é o seu país, não o meu. Existem limites para o que sou capaz de fazer. Sei bem até onde posso ir.

Mas prometo que eu vou apoiar vocês na sua luta pela liberdade. E posso dizer uma coisa que muitos brasileiros não podem mais: Alexandre de Moraes é um tirano. E a única maneira de lidar com os tiranos é enfrentando-os. Cabe aos seus senadores enfrentar o tirano. E cabe ao povo do Brasil pressionar seus senadores para que façam isso.
Por favor, junte-se aos nossos “Spaces” para discutir a repressão totalitária do governo brasileiro à liberdade de expressão!
👀
Read 4 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Apr 3
TWITTER FILES - BRAZIL

Brazil is engaged in a sweeping crackdown on free speech led by a Supreme Court justice named Alexandre de Moraes.

De Moraes has thrown people in jail without trial for things they posted on social media. He has demanded the removal of users from social media platforms. And he has required the censorship of specific posts, without giving users any right of appeal or even the right to see the evidence presented against them.

Now, Twitter Files, released here for the first time, reveal that de Moraes and the Superior Electoral Court he controls engaged in a clear attempt to undermine democracy in Brazil. They:

— illegally demanded that Twitter reveal personal details about Twitter users who used hashtags he did not like;

— demanded access to Twitter’s internal data, in violation of Twitter policy;

— sought to censor, unilaterally, Twitter posts by sitting members of Brazil’s Congress;

— sought to weaponize Twitter’s content moderation policies against supporters of then-president @jairbolsonaro

The Files show: the origins of the Brazilian judiciary’s demand for sweeping censorship powers; the court’s use of censorship for anti-democratic election interference; and the birth of the Censorship Industrial Complex in Brazil.

TWITTER FILES - BRAZIL was written by @david_agape_ @EliVieiraJr & @shellenberger

We presented these findings to de Moraes, to the Supreme Court (STF), and to the High Electoral Court (TSE). None responded.

Let’s get into it...
“We are… pushing back against the requests...”

On February 14, 2020, Twitter’s legal counsel in Brazil, Rafael Batista, emailed his colleagues to describe a hearing in Congress on “Disinformation and 'fake news’”

Batista revealed that members of Brazil’s Congress had asked Twitter for the “content of messages exchanged by some users via DMs” as well as “login records - among other info.”

Batista said, “We are… pushing back against the requests,” which were illegal, “because they do not meet [Brazilian Internet law] Marco Civil legal requirements for disclosure of user's records.”

Batista noted that some conservative Twitter users had gone to the Supreme Court “after they learned from the media that the Congress was trying to get their IPs and DM content. In light of this, the Supreme Court granted an injunction suspending the requirement given its failure to fulfill legal requirements.”Image
CONTEXT: Brazil’s Supreme Court and Superior Electoral Court

Seven justices comprise Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE).

Three of those justices are also members of the Supreme Court (STF).

One of them, Alexandre de Moraes, presides over the TSE.

Here's background on the rise of Brazil's Censorship Industrial Complex by @david_agape_

Read 24 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Mar 29
The head of the @BBC says it will “Pursue the truth with no agenda by reporting fearlessly & fairly.” But, according to current & former BBC journalists, the BBC is suppressing the truth about "gender-affirming care," mislabeling men as women, and failing to safeguard children. Image
Bullying, Cowardice, And Careerism Behind BBC Disinformation On Gender

Current and former BBC journalists condemn the British media giant for corruption of language and failing to safeguard children and vulnerable adults

by @shellenberger
Tim Davie (left) Director-General of BBC (Getty Images)

The highest purpose of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is to “Pursue the truth with no agenda,” said its Director-General, Tim Davie, last week. BBC would do this “by reporting fearlessly and fairly.” In his speech, “A BBC For the Future,” Davie added that “Disinformation, propaganda, and partial news is [sic] weakening our shared understanding of the world, undermining trust in our institutions and our democratic process.”

To combat this disinformation, the BBC launched a special initiative, “BBC Verify,” last year. Last week, the BBC released a 9-page report to reporters that required a “careful and accurate use of language” regarding gender.

But according to current and former BBC journalists, the BBC itself is spreading disinformation, failing to pursue the truth without regard to any agenda, and behaving fearfully and unfairly on issues relating to transgenderism.

Three days before Davie gave his speech, The Times of London reportedthat BBC had buried a large package of investigative stories on the problems with giving children and adolescents puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones in an effort to change their sex or gender. Former BBC journalist Hannah Barnes said, “The BBC didn’t really back our work at all.”

It’s true that BBC ran part of Barnes’s article. She told the Times that it “wasn’t blocked.” Barnes went on to write a book, Time To Think, based in part on her reporting, which started at BBC. And in 2020, the BBC, after facing criticism, stopped working with a transgender advocacy group.

But Barnes told the Times, “There’s a really big difference [between running a story and properly projecting it].” Her documentary films “weren’t promoted across the BBC. It wasn’t like Panorama. You didn’t hear it on the news bulletins. You didn’t see it on the Six or the Ten [O’Clock News].”

And BBC buried a major part of her story, said Barnes. She had learned that the medical director of Britain’s main gender clinic, Tavistock, had “failed to mention a number of safeguarding concerns raised by [gender clinic] Gids staff in a review he had published of the service.”

The Times of London described Barnes’ scoop as “a turning point in the story: a revelation that prompted the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to conduct its own review, in which Gids would ultimately be rated ‘inadequate.’” The Times reported that none of it ran. Said Barnes, “It wasn’t anywhere on the BBC. The online piece was so buried that even though I had written it, I couldn’t find it.”

And two years after distancing itself from one trans activist group, in 2022, BBC gave seed funding directly to another group, “All About Trans.”

In response to our questions, a BBC spokesperson told Public, “The BBC is committed to reporting all stories impartially, in accordance with its publicly available editorial guidelines.” The BBC spokesperson referred us to BBC editorial guidelines, an article in Dateline about the 9-page reporting guide, and the transcript of testimony given by Davie and two other BBC executives to a parliamentary committee.”

For years, the BBC’s decision to refer to trans-identified men as “women” has inspired controversy. In 2022, BBC changed the pronouns of a trans-identified male attacker. The Times of London reported at the time that “The woman referred to her alleged rapist as ‘him’ but [BBC] insiders said that her words were changed to avoid ‘misgendering’ the abuser in an article on the corporation’s website.” BBC has, on several other occasions, referred to male rapists and male sexual predators of children using female pronouns

A male suspect of child pornography mis-identified by BBC as a woman.📷
The BBC Style guide requires BBC employees to use female pronouns with “a person born male who lives as a female… We generally use the term and pronoun preferred by the person in question unless there are editorial reasons not to do so.”

Barnes isn’t the only former BBC reporter to level concerns at BBC for bias. “The BBC is telling its journalists to lie about a person’s sex under almost all circumstances if the person requests it,” wrote Cath Walton, who worked at BBC for 25 years before leaving in 2023.

“How is a presenter or reporter to explain why there is a controversy at all about trans-identified men in, say, women’s sports or prisons if they are unable to say that they are male?” Walton asked. “It should be a requirement, not a punishable offense.”

And now, yet another BBC journalist has decided to speak out publicly and has even agreed to record a podcast interview, below...Image
Please subscribe now to support Public's award-winning investigative reporting, read the rest of the article, and listen to the podcast with the BBC reporter who is speaking out.

Read 4 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Mar 29
A representative for the EU says, in response to our reporting, “We are not censoring anyone’s opinion.” In truth, she and the EU are putting in place a sweeping totalitarian system of censorship and lying about it.
Four days ago, Czech investigative journalist @CecilieJilkova exposed the censorship efforts of @VeraJourova. Jourova ignored repeated requests for an interview.

Now, supposedly coincidentally @VeraJourova is claiming to have uncovered a vast “Russian disinformation” effort
@CecilieJilkova @VeraJourova Suddenly, out of the blue, “Czech and Belgian intelligence” are alleging a vast Russian disinformation and bribery campaign. They are claiming to have proof that conservative politicians — ie, Jourkva’s political rivals — are Russian puppets.
Read 11 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Mar 26
You are not crazy, you are right: elites across the West are imposing a crackdown on speech. They have weaponized intelligence and security agencies. The news media are helping them. But they will lose in Ireland and could lose elsewhere. We will support your fight for freedom.
They are cracking down in Germany…
The same characters are attacking free speech in Brazil:

public.substack.com/p/fbi-soros-an…
Read 8 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Mar 24
We should trust @BBC to fight misinformation, it says. But we shouldn't. Last year it spread false information about hate speech, Nigel Farage, and Israel-Gaza. Now, a former BBC reporter says it killed a major story about the coverup of medical mistreatment of gender confusion. Image
The former BBC reporter @hannahsbee went on to write a book, "A Time To Think," about the scandal of giving drugs and surgeries to gender-confused kids. Last year, her book was short-listed for the prestigious "Orwell Prize."

amazon.com/Time-Think-Col…
Here's what happened, as reported in The Times Of London, today:

Barnes "was editing [BBC flagship program] Newsnight on the night she revealed that the [gender clinic hospital] Tavistock trust’s medical director, Dr Dinesh Sinha, had failed to mention a number of safeguarding concerns raised by [gender clinic] Gids staff in a review he had published of the service.

"It was a turning point in the story: a revelation that prompted the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to conduct its own review, in which Gids would ultimately be rated 'inadequate.' Barnes had worked a 16-hour shift, editing the package down so that the story could air on the various news bulletins. None of it ran. 'It wasn’t anywhere on the BBC. The online piece was so buried that even though I had written it, I couldn’t find it.'"Image
Read 5 tweets

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