FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr told Newsmax on Tuesday that the "concerning" censorship of the social media platform X in Brazil is just "the tip of the iceberg."
On Friday, Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the suspension of Elon Musk's X after the tech billionaire declined to name a legal representative in the country.
The move is reportedly the latest in a long-running feud between de Moraes and Musk over free speech, misinformation, and conservative X accounts.
During an appearance on Newsmax's "Carl Higbie FRONTLINE," Carr said the situation in Brazil is "what is taking place just below the surface in countries all across the globe."
"It's very concerning," Carr said. "Some of the headlines would suggest that this was a dispute about a registered agent in Brazil; it's nothing like that. I've read through the full 51-page decision of the justice in Brazil, and he says expressly that he wants to ban X because he's worried that free speech available to the people in Brazil will influence how they will vote in Brazil's upcoming election.
"He pointed expressly to Brexit in 2016 and [former] President [Donald] Trump's election here in 2016 as examples of populist outcomes, indicating that he wanted to avoid," he continued. "This violates Brazil's constitution. There are government officials in Brazil that are standing up against this. They don't necessarily need to reflect the same free speech rights we have in America, but you can't violate Brazilian law and take that out in retribution on companies that are ultimately tied back to the U.S."
Carr also pointed to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's admission last week that he was pressured to censor COVID-19 content on his platforms during the pandemic by the Biden-Harris administration and said that it "should be deeply concerning" to all Americans.
"We need some accountability there, but, at least in the short term, Facebook and other social media sites should publicly disclose, between now and the election, if any government officials — right, left, center — pressure them to censor America's posts," he said. "If they don't feel like they can publicly disclose it, then they should go to Congress and immediately disclose on a bipartisan basis that pressure that's taking place.
"Free speech is so important, but it's really on the knife edge right now," he continued. "We are seeing, to your point, an effort to adopt censorship, to put it in the rubric of disinformation or misinformation, but it's concerning. Free speech is democracy's check on authoritarianism and, unfortunately, this is a live debate right now."
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