There are many reasons to view , CEO of , this Tuesday (7) with skepticism — and political opportunism —. Zuckerberg himself has frequently defended and even imposed the exact type of online political censorship he condemned.
The first time I reported Big Tech’s censorship was when documenting its close relationship with the Israeli government. The platform approved more than 95% of censorship requests against Palestinian journalists and activists. Just before the 2020 US election, Facebook was out of favor.
In 2021, Facebook banned the then-president from its platform for two years. During the pandemic, the company removed a wide range of opinions that diverge from orthodoxies about Covid-19, at the request of the Biden administration — including views that Zuckerberg himself later admitted were “debatable” or “even true”.
Regardless of the motivations, there is one point on which Zuckerberg is undeniably correct. In a statement widely understood to be aimed at Brazil and , the Facebook founder stated that “Latin American countries can order companies to remove content silently.”
The reason this comment was associated with Brazil is simple: this happens in Brazil. Ironically, the same major media outlets and government officials who protested Meta’s new policy, warning about the dangers of “disinformation” — and insisting that only they can define the truth — have spread disinformation in response.
They accused Zuckerberg of making such a claim about Brazil “without evidence”. The truth is exactly the opposite: the evidence is clear and abundant.
Last April, this newspaper published an editorial with the title: “”. The text warned about exactly what Zuckerberg pointed out yesterday: “Secret orders prohibit citizens from expressing themselves on social networks.” And he added: “The secrecy of these decisions prevents society from scrutinizing the very particular reading of the constitutional text that supports them.”
In January 2023, I obtained and published one of these many secret censorship orders issued by Moraes. To understand the veracity of Zuckerberg’s allegations about Brazil, just read Moraes’ order.
Dated January 11, 2023, it was addressed to six social media platforms, including Facebook and Meta. The STF minister ordered the platforms to immediately ban the accounts of a long list of politicians, journalists and commentators, including elected deputies and senators.
As part of the order, Moraes demanded that the platforms: “Given the confidential nature of these records, the necessary measures must be adopted for their maintenance,” he wrote.
Before publishing these orders, I interviewed several people whose accounts were banned by Moraes’ order. None of them were informed of the existence of the orders or received explanations about the ban, much less had the opportunity to challenge their validity.
This is, by definition, a secret censorship order. Since then, other similar orders from Moraes have been revealed, including by journalists who worked on the so-called .
One can, if one wishes, justify Moraes’ secret censorship scheme, as many have done, along with everything else he accomplishes. But one cannot deny — at least not honestly — the existence of this secret judicial process of censorship.
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