A foreign minister who served under former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro called on the Biden administration to condemn his country’s ban on social media platform X, saying the U.S. has a ‘responsibility’ to speak up.
Ernesto Araújo, who served as foreign minister under Bolsonaro from 2019 to 2021, said the U.S. has a ‘responsibility to be the reference point for democracy, for rule of law, for freedom in the hemisphere.’ But the White House has been silent for too long, he said, and it’s hesitation to advocate for free speech predates the ban on X, he said.
“The Biden administration is not living up to that – have not lived up to that for a long time – and about what is happening in Brazil, because the banning of X is not something out of the blue,” Araújo told Fox News Digital. “It’s one more step, after many steps, of curtailing basic rights and destroying the rule of law, destroying democracy in Brazil, something perpetrated by the Supreme Court, by a good portion of the political class, and the administration never did anything.”
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Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes last week banned X after the company failed to appoint a legal representative in the country, leading to the “immediate, complete and total suspension of X’s operations” in Brazil.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo offers a press conference at Itamaraty Palace in Brasilia on March 2, 2021. (Evaristo Sa/AFP via Getty Images)
The ban will remain in place “until all court orders . . . are complied with, fines are duly paid and a new legal representative for the company is appointed in the country,” according to The Guardian.
X, under outspoken owner Elon Musk, has refused to comply following Moraes’s order to ban several accounts related to individuals involved in an alleged attempted coup last year. The powerful judge alleged that these accounts have spread misinformation and represent a threat.
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Musk accused the judge, an ally of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, of attacking free speech and said the order violates the Brazilian constitution. He further alleged in a post on X that the judge had targeted his platform “for political reasons.”
US President Joe Biden meets with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, on the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York City on September 20, 2023. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
The White House has remained silent on the issue, and it declined a Fox News Digital request for comment. The U.S. State Department has also not issued any comments regarding the decision.
“I think the U.S. has this kind of international responsibility in the world – in the hemisphere, for sure,” Araújo said. “It should be an ally of those who are trying to protect freedom and not those who are destroying freedom.”
Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s president, left, gives U.S. President Donald Trump, a soccer jersey during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, March 19, 2019. Trump said he is “very inclined” to make Brazil an official U.S. ally, a status that would provide the country with preferential access to U.S. military equipment and technology. (Chris Kleponis/Pool via Bloomberg)
“So I see a lot of sympathy from the Biden administration, from the Democratic Party, for the wrong people in Latin America,” he added. “It’s not a question of right or left, it’s a question of those who just claim to be for democracy.”
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The order has not gone over well in Brazil, with the country heavily divided over the resulting ban. Many users have jumped ship to other platforms – mainly rivals Bluesky and Threads.
The Brazilian user base for X is one-fifth and one-sixth that of Instagram and TikTok, respectively, but the platform has served as a major nexus for news agencies and political and thought leaders, giving it an outsized influence.
Elon Musk is seen during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint meeting of Congress in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, July 24, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Izabela Patriota, the director of development of the Ladies of Liberty Alliance and head of its Brazil section, told FOX Business that protests would materialize on Saturday, which coincides with Brazil’s Independence Day celebrations.
While many Brazilians have found alternative social media outlets, former officials and allies of Bolsonaro argue that the ban sets the stage for further bans. Patriota fears that the courts could eventually take similar actions against the other platforms and services should the justices determine they also posed a threat. Musk also owns Starlink, a satellite internet service which has been targeted by de Moraes.
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“Where X is just another platform, and so many Brazilians are already migrating to different platforms, Starlink is providing access to many, many, many communities in the Amazon areas that they wouldn’t have without Starlink,” Patriota said.
Araújo also worried about the international trajectory for his country, noting that Brazil has continued to build ties with “the territorial block of China, Russia, Iran.”
“It’s basically, playing a game,” Araújo said. “Lula wants to play this game . . . he’s really, for everything that matters, is allying Brazil with the enemies of freedom, with the enemies of the United States.”
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“I think it’s in the hands of some people in the State Department or Democratic Party who think that Lula is their friend who also – I don’t know if it’s for specific interest or they’re just not smart enough to know what’s happening – who think that Lula is the good guy, and the Right is the bad guys in Brazil.”
The White House did not respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment by time of publication.