In the midst of large technology companies, the minister of (Supreme Federal Court) gave a speech of about 40 minutes to new students from the USP Faculty of Law on Monday (24) criticizing the Big Techs.
The magistrate stated that “Big Techs are not sent from God, as some want.”
“They are not neutral. They are economic groups that want to dominate world economy and politics, ignoring borders, ignoring the national sovereignty of each country, ignoring legislations, to have power and profit,” he said.
He associated these companies with fascism and brainwashing, stating that social networks were instrumentalized by the far right in different countries to attack what they called three pillars of democracy: a free press, periodic elections and an independent judiciary.
“We are starting to understand how this process of transforming social networks was given into instruments of harmful ideology, fascism, disseminating discourses of hatred, misogyny, homophobia and even Nazi ideas,” he said.
He then described what would be the “modus operandi” of the “extremist digital populism movements”.
“Nowhere in the world do these groups say they are against democracy. They say: ‘This democracy […] There are frauds’, so this is not worth it. If I lose, it’s not worth it. There is only democracy if I win. And in order to strengthen democracy, I have to seize power. This is the speech, “he said.
Moraes also argued that Big Techs and extremist groups have explored economic crises and income concentration in the last 40 years, growing dissatisfaction with democracy around the world.
Speaking of the Brazilian case, he cited a sense of revolt of the population’s portions, “especially white heterosexual men, who felt threatened by social and economic changes.” He stated that social networks amplified this speech.
“What was once a joke of the ‘barbecue uncle’ became a dominant discourse, capable of influencing elections and eroding democratic institutions,” he argued. The minister pondered that it was not the big techs or social networks that generated this feeling, “but they knew how to capture.”
Last week, Moraes in a US Federal Court filed by the president’s media and the Rumble video platform. The process was filed in a district in Florida, where Rumble is headquartered.
The platforms claim that recent orders of Moraes determine that Rumble closes the account of the scholarship influencer Allan dos Santos and provides his user data violates the sovereignty of the country and the country’s laws.
Rumble left Brazil in December 2023 due to what as several “unfair orders of censorship” emitted by Moraes to ban the network creators and public figures, including parliamentarians.
At the time, Moraes ordered the company to keep confidential on these orders, threatening the company with the interruption of its services in Brazil if it did not immediately comply them. The decision of the platform from leaving the country was to avoid the imposition of fines by the Brazilian court.
One day after the Sheet Reveal the lawsuit, last Friday (21), the minister throughout the national territory. He stated that the measure was necessary in the face of “repeated, conscious and volunteers inailed to comply with court orders.”
On the same day, the Moraes account in the X (former Twitter). According to the STF, it was he himself who inactivated his profile, because he has not used it since January 2024. “I retired”, the judge, who has promoted a series of against the businessman’s website.
