Lula’s rallying call is resonating more widely as Musk amplifies fake news and conspiracy theories on X while taking on political leaders in the UK, Germany and the European Union. How the fightback plays out may result in a model for how to respond – or a lesson in the limits of government influence over big tech. — Reuters
European governments reeling from Elon Musk’s political attacks are comparing notes with fellow targets all-too familiar with the X owner’s methods.
Brazil briefly took down X last year over hate speech and fake news, and is heading for a broader showdown with social media networks as President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva mounts a crusade against disinformation that he says is so pervasive it’s undermining democracy.
It’s an approach that’s being closely watched in Europe: In recent days, Lula, as Brazil’s leader is known, has held calls with French President Emmanuel Macron and with Antonio Costa, the Portuguese president of the European Council, about ways to preserve countries’ sovereignty and the battle against disinformation, racism, misogyny and hate crimes spread on social media.
Macron and Lula have had “many” conversations on the topic and “Brazil is bringing its expertise in several areas,” said Tiennot Sciberras, press counselor of the French Embassy in Brazil. “It’s Brazil that is pulling us along in the fight against disinformation about climate.”
Lula’s rallying call is resonating more widely as Musk amplifies fake news and conspiracy theories on X while taking on political leaders in the UK, Germany and the European Union. How the fightback plays out may result in a model for how to respond – or a lesson in the limits of government influence over big tech.
Just this year in Brazil, a fake video generated using artificial intelligence was posted showing Finance Minister Fernando Haddad announcing new taxes. False online information amplified by opposition lawmakers claimed that the government was about to tax a popular instant-payment system known as Pix, forcing the government to scrap a plan to boost financial system oversight.
‘Lawless land’
“Social media is not a lawless land,” Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who led the charge against Musk last year, warned on Jan 8, the day after Meta announced it was ditching fact-checkers in the US. Moraes was speaking to commemorate the riots in Brasilia of exactly two years previously that were fueled by fake news.
Listing problems with online “hate speech, Nazism, fascism, racism, misogyny, homophobia and anti-democratic comments,” Moraes said that networks will only be allowed to operate in the country if they comply with Brazilian law – “regardless of the bravado of irresponsible big-tech leaders.”
That’s a red rag to the Trump administration, whose affinity with big-tech leaders including Musk and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg was on show at the president’s inauguration.
The Brazilian government is working on proposals for taxation of big tech and competitive regulation of the sector, while the Supreme Court has begun discussing whether it can be held responsible for content posted by users that is hate speech, fake news or offensive. A bill aimed at regulating AI meanwhile passed the senate last year but still needs lower house approval.
“The government’s goal is not to control content, it is to protect people, families and businesses who are victim of crime in the digital world,” Institutional Relations Minister Alexandre Padilha told reporters on Monday before delivering to congress Lula’s message on 2025 priorities. “We’ll support everything that goes in that direction.”
Lula’s government planned a public hearing into new policies on content moderation on Jan. 22, with representatives of Alphabet, LindkedIn, Meta, TikTok, X, instant messaging app Discord and video app Kwai invited, according to the Attorney General Office. They neither attended nor justified their absence.
That’s all likely to inflame tensions with the Trump administration. Vice-President JD Vance has already fired a warning shot in Europe’s direction over related moves, linking US support for NATO to the EU’s approach to regulating X.
The prospects of a US clash with Brazil have further risen with Trump’s pick to chair the Federal Communications Commission of Brendan Carr. At the height of Musk’s standoff with Brazil, Carr accused Anatel, the country’s telecoms regulator, of “apparently unlawful and partisan political actions” and charged Lula’s government with “violating its own laws through arbitrary and capricious actions against X and Starlink,” Musk’s satellite internet service.
But it was Musk who ultimately blinked then, complying with the Supreme Court’s demands that included taking down some user accounts and appointing a legal representative for X in the country.
Trump still cited Brazil’s ban on X in his Dec 27 request urging the US Supreme Court to pause a ban on Chinese-owned video app TikTok, saying that Brazil’s actions were “apparently based on that government’s desire to suppress disfavored political speech”.
Brazil has long experience of the problems posed by unrestricted, predominantly US-owned social-media platforms, according to Brazil’s Attorney General Jorge Messias.
“The situation has worsened with Meta’s change of policy, but we were already under attack by Elon Musk for a year and a half,” Messias said in an interview. “As we are talking about a few companies that dominate this worldwide, obviously the world should coordinate to have a global response.”
Lula is convinced that Brazil is doing the right thing by facing down Meta and Musk, according to a person familiar with the president’s thinking. At the same time, he sees a lethargy out of there in dealing with the problem, and so his government is trying to engage other nations in a discussion on big tech’s global dominance. The president is determined to keep the pressure on, so raises it in his regular talks with world leaders, a separate person said. Both asked not to named discussing private deliberations.
Lula and Macron held a call on Jan 10 on “their common fight against misinformation and for the regulation of content on social networks,” according to a French statement.
Similarly, Brazil and the UK “have launched joint projects to build public resilience against misinformation and disinformation,” the British Embassy in Brasilia said in a statement, adding that “the UK-Brazil partnership in this space is strong.”
It’s also becoming more urgent.
Musk, as well as directing personal insults at Prime Minister Keir Starmer and criticising his left-leaning Labour government, has promoted conspiracy theories over a child sex-abuse scandal. He endorsed the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party for Feb. 23 federal elections. And a spat with the EU has deepened as the European Commission expanded an investigation into whether X is in breach of the bloc’s content moderation rulebook, the DSA, demanding the platform hand over internal data.
“The democratic system is at risk all over the world,” Lula said in a Jan 16 speech arguing that misinformation has to be confronted and challenged every minute of every day.
In November, he managed to include an article on the need to regulate social media in the closing statement of the Group of 20 summit which he chaired. His wife, Rosangela da Silva, put it more bluntly: “(Expletive) you, Elon Musk,” she said.
Musk responded with a tweet.
The issue is so high on Lula’s agenda because social media was the main driving force behind the Jan 8 coup attempt that almost succeeded, a senior official said. Subsequent disinformation attacking electronic ballots and Pix, innovations which should be unassailable, shows how fierce and lawless the digital environment has become, the official said.
The government tried to regulate social media in the wake of Jan 8 but the right-wing opposition claimed censorship and blocked the debate. Lula wants to take advantage of the moment to try again.
“Just as the state organised itself in the past to confront monopolies, oligopolies, the formation of cartels creating antitrust agencies, the state must prepare itself to face the gigantic power that these big tech companies have today,” said Messias, the Attorney General. “The world’s governments need to organise themselves to face this new phenomenon.” – Bloomberg