Elon Musk says Brazil appeared to violate law through 'aggressive censorship'

Elon Musk said that Brazil appears to be illegally censoring people online after a new "Twitter Files" dump showed that a Brazilian Supreme Federal Court justice appears to be punishing people for posting their opinions online.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes is cracking down on speech by throwing people in jail over their online posts, reporter Michael Shellenberger said on X, formerly Twitter, last week.

"This aggressive censorship appears to violate the law & will of the people of Brazil," Musk responded Saturday to Shellenberger in a post on X.

New records show that de Moraes and his court also "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," and "sought to censor, unilaterally, Twitter posts by sitting members of Brazil’s Congress," per Shellenberger.

The justice also "sought to weaponize Twitter’s content moderation policies" against supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, who was president of Brazil at the time, Shellenberger also said.

Bolsonaro was indicted last month for alleged vaccine record fraud.

The "Twitter files" is a series released by multiple journalists about Twitter's alleged censorship before Musk took over the platform.

Follow Madeleine Hubbard on X or Instagram.