Despite The Washington Post’s criticism of Elon Musk, the paper criticized the Brazilian government for moving to ban X.
“The billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX is correct when he says a Brazilian jurist’s move to unilaterally prohibit X, which he owns, from operating in the country is an assault on internet speech around the world,” The Post wrote in an editorial headlined, “In this free speech fight, Musk’s X has marked the right position.”
In Brazil, a state judge ordered the “immediate and complete suspension” of WhatsApp until it fulfills unidentified court orders and resolves older fines. Brazil is also challenging Musk’s other company Starlink.
In a statement, The Post condemned the decision made by Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes to shutter X as an attack on free expression. In recent years, “with mandates for removals and even arrest warrants often issued under seal with little or no information to back them up,” the editorial continued, the decision extracted a “significant cost to free expression.”
In addition, the editorial observed that “the recent move against X is more of the same and simply much worse: When [X] failed to comply with previous court orders to block over 140 accounts on Wednesday, Justice Ayres Britto threatened arrest of its legal representative in Brazil.”
In response, Musk’s legal team returned from Brazil — and the situation escalated again. The Post condemned these moves as authoritarian.
The editorial went on to state, “That – in conjunction with Mr. Moraes’s freezing of the assets of internet-provider Starlink (another Musk business) — does not position Brazil with other countries as a free-world beacon but rather has it sinking below the likes of China and Russia.”
The Washington Post defending Musk is a bit shocking, considering how often the publication has been less than fond of him. More recently, The paper has been highly critical of Musk’s activities in the wake of his purchase of Twitter in 2022.
A Post reporter suggested recently that the Biden administration could censor “misinformation” before Musk was interviewed by former President Trump.
