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Brazil’s Battle Against Fake News & the US War to Undermine it · The Real News Podcast

0:06
Speaker 1: Okay, Max, can you hear me?
0:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, brilliant, you're coming in lad and clear on.
0:10
Speaker 1: This fantastic Max. I want to tell you a story.
0:17
Speaker 3: It's a tale of two countries, the United States and Brazil.
0:22
Speaker 3: They are the two countries with the largest populations and
0:25
Speaker 3: the largest economies in the Western Hemisphere. Brazil is about
0:29
Speaker 3: the size of the lower forty eight of the United States,
0:32
Speaker 3: and politically, in both countries, something very similar has happened
0:37
Speaker 3: in recent years. In both countries. Far right presidents come
0:41
Speaker 3: to power. In both those countries, The president spends several
0:45
Speaker 3: years unraveling democratic institutions and public policy. Then both those
0:50
Speaker 3: presidents run for reelection. Both the presidents lie about their
0:54
Speaker 3: country's voting systems in order to undermine the elections and
0:58
Speaker 3: whip up their base. Both those presidents lose their reelections,
1:03
Speaker 3: they both claim fraud, and then they both try to
1:06
Speaker 3: carry out.
1:06
Speaker 1: A coup to stay in power.
1:08
Speaker 3: But that is where these two paths diverge. In the
1:12
Speaker 3: United States, President Donald Trump continues to pedal his lies
1:15
Speaker 3: about the election. He creates his own social media platform
1:19
Speaker 3: and uses it to push his agenda. He returns the
1:22
Speaker 3: power in twenty twenty five. You know the story of
1:26
Speaker 3: freedom of speech in Brazil.
1:28
Speaker 1: However, the.
1:33
Speaker 3: Country's Supreme Electoral Court blocks former president Jayo Bolsonado from
1:38
Speaker 3: running for office for eight years because of the lies
1:42
Speaker 3: he told about the country's electoral system. It is not censorship,
1:47
Speaker 3: it's a different interpretation of free speech, one that says
1:51
Speaker 3: the right to free expression must be balanced within the
1:54
Speaker 3: other rights in the country and the country's democratic system.
1:58
Speaker 3: To quote Robert from Lost, that has made all the difference.
2:03
Speaker 4: Bosonago is basically being punished by something that he said
2:07
Speaker 4: about the electoral system.
2:09
Speaker 3: I've been speaking lately with fab d says Silva. He's
2:12
Speaker 3: a Brazilian legal expert and an associate professor of International
2:16
Speaker 3: studies at the University of Oklahoma.
2:18
Speaker 4: And in the United States, saying things propagating likes and
2:23
Speaker 4: misinformation about the electoral system, I don't think it would
2:28
Speaker 4: be punishable at all under any circumstance because of how
2:33
Speaker 4: strong the protection to free speech rights is in the
2:37
Speaker 4: United States. And you know, in the past, I think
2:39
Speaker 4: a lot of people thought about this as an advantage
2:42
Speaker 4: of the United States in comparison to other societies. But
2:46
Speaker 4: I think more recently there has been a rethinking of this,
2:50
Speaker 4: and there has been you know, and understanding that it's
2:53
Speaker 4: not that other countries lack free speech rights, it's just
2:57
Speaker 4: that they have other rights that they balance free speech
3:00
Speaker 4: rights against. And in the case of Brazil, you know,
3:05
Speaker 4: because we all understood in the twenty eighteen election that
3:10
Speaker 4: misinformation was a serious threat to democracy, the legal system
3:15
Speaker 4: began to offer a response.
3:18
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty three, Bolshanada was banned from running again,
3:22
Speaker 3: and if you've been following news on Brazil, you know
3:24
Speaker 3: that he was later sentenced to twenty seven years in jail.
3:27
Speaker 3: He's currently under house arrest because of health issues.
3:30
Speaker 1: He was sentenced for his.
3:31
Speaker 3: Participation in a plot to carry out a coup and
3:34
Speaker 3: overturn his twenty twenty two electoral loss, and to even
3:38
Speaker 3: assassinate leftist president Luisi Nassiu Lula da Silva. In other words,
3:44
Speaker 3: in the United States, Trump is allowed to say what
3:47
Speaker 3: he wants, disparage the electoral system, create his own social
3:51
Speaker 3: media platform, spread as many lies as he likes, and
3:54
Speaker 3: he is awarded for it by being allowed to run
3:57
Speaker 3: again and win reelection where he is now presiding over
4:01
Speaker 3: an assault on free speech rights, the likes of which
4:03
Speaker 3: we have not seen in modern day history in the
4:07
Speaker 3: United States. Meanwhile, in Brazil, Bolsonado is banned from running
4:12
Speaker 3: and he is in jail. And here's the point. The
4:19
Speaker 3: roots of all of this, the roots of this difference
4:22
Speaker 3: are the two countries' vision and interpretation of free speech.
4:26
Speaker 4: All these things that Bosonaga has been accused of, at
4:29
Speaker 4: the center of them was speech. Because what the federal
4:33
Speaker 4: police points to in their investigation is that the attempted
4:39
Speaker 4: coup involved promoting publicly and even internationally, this idea that
4:45
Speaker 4: the Brazilian elections had been defrauded, the associated with the
4:50
Speaker 4: attempt to co opse the military to take over and
4:54
Speaker 4: nullify the elections basically and also including maybe some more
5:00
Speaker 4: orthodox activities such as assassinating the elected presidents and some judges.
5:07
Speaker 4: But just to stay in the first component of this
5:12
Speaker 4: criminal enterprise, it is something that involves limitations to speech
5:18
Speaker 4: in Brazilian law. Right.
5:26
Speaker 3: In past episodes, we've been looking at the attacks on
5:29
Speaker 3: free speech in the United States. Today we look at
5:32
Speaker 3: how another country, Brazil, has pushed back on the fascist
5:35
Speaker 3: and far right wave with its own interpretation.
5:38
Speaker 1: Of free speech. And here's the thing.
5:41
Speaker 3: Brazil's understanding of free speech, as we will look at
5:44
Speaker 3: throughout this episode, is pretty similar to most of the
5:47
Speaker 3: rest of the world.
5:48
Speaker 1: The United States is the outlier, but.
5:51
Speaker 3: Trump, far right activists and owners of big tech platforms
5:55
Speaker 3: are trying to change that in order to push their
5:57
Speaker 3: absolutest interpretation of free speech abroad and undermine Brazilian democracy
6:03
Speaker 3: in the process.
6:04
Speaker 1: All of that in a minute.
6:10
Speaker 3: This is the Battle for Free Speech, a multipart narrative
6:13
Speaker 3: podcast brought to you by the Real News. In this series,
6:16
Speaker 3: we take you on a journey to understand the important
6:19
Speaker 3: role free speech has played in US history and the fight.
6:23
Speaker 1: Being waged over it.
6:24
Speaker 3: Today I'm your co host, Michael Fox, and I'm so
6:27
Speaker 3: excited to be joined today by Max Alvedez. He's the
6:31
Speaker 3: editor in chief and the co executive director of The
6:34
Speaker 3: Real News and the host of the Working People podcast. Max,
6:38
Speaker 3: thank you so much for joining me.
6:40
Speaker 5: So grateful to be here, brother, and grateful for all
6:43
Speaker 5: the incredible work that you and Mark and the whole
6:45
Speaker 5: team have been doing on this very very necessary podcast.
6:50
Speaker 5: And also I'm just like a massive fan as you
6:53
Speaker 5: know of Under the Shadow and everything else that you do,
6:55
Speaker 5: so I am very excited to finally be on one
6:58
Speaker 5: of the podcasts I'm going to be listening to you.
7:00
Speaker 3: Oh thanks Max, And in particular, I'm really excited to
7:04
Speaker 3: speak with you today because you are on the front
7:06
Speaker 3: lines of standing up for free speech but also the
7:11
Speaker 3: working class and also covering the rise of the rights,
7:15
Speaker 3: so you kind of straddle all of these things at
7:17
Speaker 3: the same time, which we're going to be digging into today.
7:21
Speaker 3: All Right, we are going to begin on our journey here.
7:26
Speaker 3: Let me just say this before we get started. So
7:29
Speaker 3: far in this podcast, we've looked back on the attacks
7:32
Speaker 3: on free speech and press freedoms today under the Trump administration.
7:36
Speaker 3: We've looked at movements using free speech to stand up
7:39
Speaker 3: for their rights. Today we're going to look at how
7:41
Speaker 3: Trump and the far right are trying to push a
7:44
Speaker 3: US definition of free speech abroad in order to lift
7:48
Speaker 3: their agenda internationally, and so much more.
7:52
Speaker 1: I got into this a little bit in the beginning.
7:55
Speaker 3: Today's episode is going to focus completely on Brazil and
7:57
Speaker 3: the role of the United States is playing in the
8:01
Speaker 3: h and today's episode is a joint collaboration together with
8:03
Speaker 3: my podcasts Under the Shadow and Brazil on Fire, Because,
8:07
Speaker 3: as you will see, there are connections throughout. If you
8:10
Speaker 3: haven't heard those, I suggest you go check them out.
8:13
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
8:14
Speaker 5: Like if you haven't heard those, I envy you because
8:17
Speaker 5: you have a feast in front of you, like Under
8:20
Speaker 5: the Shadow, Brazil on Fire. They are so good and
8:24
Speaker 5: so essential and like their award winning contributions that I
8:31
Speaker 5: guarantee if you're listening to this, you were gonna love them.
8:34
Speaker 2: So go check them out.
8:35
Speaker 5: And I don't say that just as you know, like
8:37
Speaker 5: a collaborator with Mike on producing these series, but as
8:41
Speaker 5: like a devoted listener who always learns a lot from them.
8:45
Speaker 6: Ah.
8:45
Speaker 1: Thanks Max.
8:48
Speaker 3: Three things to say before we get started. If you
8:51
Speaker 3: have been listening to this podcast series, The Battle for
8:53
Speaker 3: Free Speech, you know how this works. I go out,
8:56
Speaker 3: I do a ton of reporting. I bring that back
8:58
Speaker 3: to discuss it here.
9:00
Speaker 1: Two.
9:01
Speaker 3: I love time travel. I often say that podcasting for
9:05
Speaker 3: me is the closest thing we have to actually traveling
9:09
Speaker 3: in time. So my goal here is to take you
9:12
Speaker 3: to another time and place, and I'm glad you're along
9:14
Speaker 3: for the ride.
9:14
Speaker 1: Max.
9:15
Speaker 3: And Three I know Brazil well. My wife is Brazilian.
9:19
Speaker 3: I've lived here for years. I'm here now, and I
9:22
Speaker 3: say this so that you know that everything that we're
9:24
Speaker 3: digging into today isn't just based on my interviews for
9:27
Speaker 3: this podcast, but on the ground reporting on this over
9:32
Speaker 3: the last decade. And I seriously have been wanting to
9:35
Speaker 3: do an episode like this for a very long time.
9:38
Speaker 1: So I'm super excited. Okay, Max, are you ready?
9:42
Speaker 2: Let's do a baby.
9:43
Speaker 1: Okay, here we go.
9:47
Speaker 3: I want to begin exactly one year ago today, July ninth,
9:52
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five, US President Donald Trump writes a letter
9:57
Speaker 3: to Brazilian President luisid Nasciu Lulu to Silva. In the letter,
10:01
Speaker 3: he announces that he's levying a fifty percent tariff on
10:05
Speaker 3: all Brazilian goods. Among the reasons for this new tariff
10:09
Speaker 3: is the country's legal case against Trump ally former president
10:13
Speaker 3: Jaya Bolsonado for attempting to carry out a coup amid
10:15
Speaker 3: the twenty twenty two elections. He also chastises Brazil for
10:20
Speaker 3: allegedly violating free speech rights. In the letter, Trump denounces
10:24
Speaker 3: Brazil's quote insidious attacks on free elections and the fundamental
10:29
Speaker 3: free speech rights of Americans. He also criticizes the Brazilian
10:33
Speaker 3: Supreme Court's quote secret and unlawful censorship orders to US
10:38
Speaker 3: social media platforms. It's incredible to see the Trump administration
10:47
Speaker 3: lecturing anyone on free speech. But that is how our
10:50
Speaker 3: most basic right is being weaponized today.
10:52
Speaker 1: Anyway, moving on.
10:53
Speaker 3: A few weeks after that letter, the US Embassy in
10:56
Speaker 3: Brazil releases a fact sheet explaining Trump's new tariffs.
11:01
Speaker 7: It was like a one and a half page document.
11:05
Speaker 3: And I spoke with Arturomeo about this. He's a Brazilian
11:08
Speaker 3: journalist and the director of Reporters Without Borders for Latin America,
11:13
Speaker 3: and he says he's reading this and they mentioned free speech,
11:16
Speaker 3: free expression, or censorship like ten times. It's only a
11:20
Speaker 3: page and a half, but the entire thing it gets
11:22
Speaker 3: into just repeating this line basically saying that the United
11:27
Speaker 3: States is tariffing Brazil because it was promoting censorship.
11:31
Speaker 7: Free speech is being weaponized against freedo expression.
11:36
Speaker 3: He describes this as the United States is trying to
11:39
Speaker 3: make it look like a free speech champion.
11:42
Speaker 7: But actually, what your distorted vision of free speech is
11:49
Speaker 7: doing is fragmenting the different ideas behind what freedom of
11:56
Speaker 7: expression really is, and mostly the social and collective dimension
12:02
Speaker 7: of phenom of expression. You are only saying that people
12:06
Speaker 7: should say whatever they want without any kind of intersuance.
12:12
Speaker 7: You are basically ignoring completely the fact that people live
12:18
Speaker 7: in a society and part of the freedom of expression
12:22
Speaker 7: right is related to receive pro realistic, diverse, reliable information.
12:34
Speaker 1: And I should just pause here to say that.
12:36
Speaker 3: Like, internationally, and this is really important, especially for our
12:39
Speaker 3: US audience. Internationally, many definitions of free speech include the
12:44
Speaker 3: right to receive reliable or truthful information. And that's key
12:52
Speaker 3: because in the United States that clearly is not part of.
12:54
Speaker 1: The equation anyway.
12:56
Speaker 3: This is a really important distinction between how free speech
13:00
Speaker 3: is generally understood in the United States and elsewhere around
13:02
Speaker 3: the world. I got into this a bunch in the
13:05
Speaker 3: last episode. If you haven't heard that, you can go
13:06
Speaker 3: back and check it out now. But the idea is this,
13:08
Speaker 3: In the US, your right to free speech is generally
13:12
Speaker 3: seen as absolute. In other words, you can pretty much
13:15
Speaker 3: say what you want without repercussions, regardless of how bad
13:18
Speaker 3: it is or racist or homophobic or discriminatory. In every
13:22
Speaker 3: other country in the world, everyone, your free speech rights
13:26
Speaker 3: are seen as balanced with other rights. So your right
13:29
Speaker 3: to free speech isn't more important than my right not
13:31
Speaker 3: to be harmed, for instance.
13:34
Speaker 8: The view followed in like Germany, France, and especially for
13:39
Speaker 8: the case of this conversation, Brazil is that according to
13:42
Speaker 8: the constitution, all human rights are equally important.
13:48
Speaker 3: Brian Meher is a correspondent for Telesaur who's lived in
13:51
Speaker 3: Brazil for more than thirty years, and I spoke with
13:54
Speaker 3: him about this.
13:55
Speaker 8: You can't say that one human right is more important
13:57
Speaker 8: than another human right. You can't have a one human
14:01
Speaker 8: right that's absolutist in its nature. Free speech that would
14:06
Speaker 8: enable someone to limit or deny other people's human rights.
14:11
Speaker 3: For instance, in Brazil or in Germany, Nazism is a crime.
14:15
Speaker 3: It's illegal to be a Nazi or to spread Nazi propaganda.
14:18
Speaker 8: Because it damages the peace of mind via the freedom
14:23
Speaker 8: to come and go as they please, the freedom to
14:26
Speaker 8: interact with the public of certain minority groups in Brazil,
14:30
Speaker 8: mainly Afro Brazilians Northeasterns, but also Jewish people as well.
14:35
Speaker 8: So in Brazil it is called the harmony of rights.
14:38
Speaker 8: According to the Brazilian Constitution, all rights are equally important.
14:42
Speaker 8: Freedom of a speech is a very important right, but
14:45
Speaker 8: it can't be used to trample over some other group
14:48
Speaker 8: of people's rights.
14:51
Speaker 3: That's the idea, and this distinction is really important. And
14:54
Speaker 3: let me just say that, as I touched on last time,
14:58
Speaker 3: in the United States, we also had this kind of
15:01
Speaker 3: balancing definition of free speech until roughly the Cold War
15:04
Speaker 3: in the nineteen sixties, and that's when our current day
15:08
Speaker 3: libertarian absolutist view of free speech really took hold. What's
15:16
Speaker 3: interesting is that we don't even really realize this, We
15:18
Speaker 3: don't know this past right, and yet our definition now
15:22
Speaker 3: of free speech, absolutist definition within the United States, is
15:25
Speaker 3: now being weaponized by Trump and his far right supporters
15:28
Speaker 3: and far right allies abroad to push their agenda, as
15:32
Speaker 3: we will look into throughout this podcast before we move on, Max,
15:39
Speaker 3: do you see this, have you been seeing this battle
15:41
Speaker 3: over free speech? And do you think that people understand
15:46
Speaker 3: this within the United States, understand how free speech kind
15:49
Speaker 3: of is being weaponized and this interpretation of free speech
15:52
Speaker 3: is being weaponized.
15:54
Speaker 5: Yes, And I would say that we are not only
15:58
Speaker 5: aware of the hypocrisy of these people using free speech
16:03
Speaker 5: to take our speech, free speech away, or to impose
16:07
Speaker 5: you know, their will on Brazil or other countries, because
16:12
Speaker 5: that's what we've come to realize. Our country does that's
16:15
Speaker 5: as American as apple pie. That's in fact, you know,
16:18
Speaker 5: like what most of the world knows America to be,
16:21
Speaker 5: they don't know it anymore as the America my parents
16:24
Speaker 5: knew it to be. And like my dad came to
16:27
Speaker 5: this country for his family, came to this country for
16:30
Speaker 5: the world today does not know us as that they
16:32
Speaker 5: know us as the place that, you know, the most
16:35
Speaker 5: powerful country and military empire in the world that has
16:39
Speaker 5: been going around the world undemocratically overthrowing democratically elected leaders,
16:46
Speaker 5: undemocratically invading other countries and bombing other countries and torturing
16:51
Speaker 5: people in the name of democracy and saying like, you know,
16:55
Speaker 5: we're spreading democracy to you. You're welcome. And now smash
16:59
Speaker 5: cut to twenty twenty six. You know, these sort of
17:03
Speaker 5: fascist you know, posters of Donald Trump or draping Washington, DC,
17:07
Speaker 5: and everything that we're talking about on this series is
17:10
Speaker 5: unfolding before our eyes. And I don't think a lot
17:14
Speaker 5: of us know what free speech means in this context.
17:18
Speaker 5: And I think like that is why the takeaway for
17:23
Speaker 5: this discussion and any discussion that we have about it
17:26
Speaker 5: is like, well, what are we going to fight for it?
17:28
Speaker 4: To be.
17:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, Max, I really appreciate you. You wrapping in this
17:34
Speaker 3: question of how the United States has justified interventions abroad
17:39
Speaker 3: in the name of democracy, and how what we're seeing
17:41
Speaker 3: now is the justification for the tariffs in the name
17:44
Speaker 3: of free speech, which I think is a great It
17:47
Speaker 3: is a great connection. In order to understand all of this,
17:52
Speaker 3: Trump's letter, in particular is pushback on Brazil and Trump's
17:57
Speaker 3: rationale for imposing these tariffs. We need to back up
18:00
Speaker 3: a little bit, so we're going to go back in time.
18:04
Speaker 3: We're jumping in the time machine.
18:05
Speaker 1: Max. Here we go, oh go.
18:12
Speaker 3: The year is twenty eighteen. It's the lead up to
18:15
Speaker 3: Brazil's huge presidential elections. Former president Lula was the front runner,
18:19
Speaker 3: but he was jailed on trumped up charges of corruption.
18:22
Speaker 3: Bolsonado is the Trump outsider candidate, longtime congressman, former captain
18:28
Speaker 3: under the Brazilian military dictatorship, something he is still vocally
18:33
Speaker 3: proud of, and he's surging in the polls because of
18:37
Speaker 3: a slew of fake news and disinformation the likes of
18:40
Speaker 3: which the country has never seen. Just one example, I
18:44
Speaker 3: was covering the election for numerous outlets and I went
18:47
Speaker 3: to this press conference for the then leftist candidate Fernando Adagi.
18:53
Speaker 3: And in this press conference, it was just a couple
18:55
Speaker 3: of days before the first round vote, and he had
18:59
Speaker 3: called it because his Worker's party had created a WhatsApp
19:02
Speaker 3: hotline to receive complaints of false or misleading news and
19:07
Speaker 3: memes being spread. They said that within twenty four hours
19:11
Speaker 3: they'd received fifteen thousand messages.
19:14
Speaker 1: Twenty four hours, fifteen thousand messages.
19:16
Speaker 3: The day before, I spoke with this street artist who
19:19
Speaker 3: told me quote, our election will not be decided by
19:22
Speaker 3: the candidate's proposals or their speeches. It will be decided
19:26
Speaker 3: by the lies spread online. The Brazilian elections will be
19:29
Speaker 3: decided by the ability of some groups to push fake
19:32
Speaker 3: news and the ability of us, the voters, to discern
19:35
Speaker 3: what is and what is not real.
19:41
Speaker 1: And that is exactly what happened.
19:43
Speaker 3: The voters could not discern most, but not all, of
19:47
Speaker 3: the fake news or misleading news were being pushed by
19:49
Speaker 3: Bolsnado's allies and supporters. The country was overwhelmed and unprepared
19:54
Speaker 3: for the disinformation campaign, and so was the Supreme Electoral Court,
19:58
Speaker 3: which oversees the elections Seminando they were able to request
20:05
Speaker 3: that dozens of posts be taken down, but they just
20:07
Speaker 3: didn't have the breadth of.
20:09
Speaker 1: Being able to handle a barrage of posts like this.
20:13
Speaker 1: In the end, the result this.
20:15
Speaker 9: Is Bolson Nairo's Brazil, the world fourth largest democracy, has
20:21
Speaker 9: voted on a new president.
20:22
Speaker 3: Bolshonado won the election with roughly fifty five percent of
20:25
Speaker 3: the vote. I was covering the election outside of his
20:28
Speaker 3: home that night in Rio de Janeiro. And then Bolshnado
20:31
Speaker 3: came into power and proceeded to run the country into
20:32
Speaker 3: the ground. Like I detailed in depth in Brazil On Fire,
20:36
Speaker 3: my podcast. He guided social programs, privatized state businesses, denied
20:41
Speaker 3: the COVID pandemic, pushed unproven drugs, attacked universities, much of
20:45
Speaker 3: which we saw under Trump in the United States as well,
20:49
Speaker 3: but in Brazil. And this is the reason why I'm
20:52
Speaker 3: bringing all this up now.
20:53
Speaker 1: The courts learned.
20:54
Speaker 10: Their lesson Jose's system, learned to create and to stimulate
21:02
Speaker 10: some vaccines for this information and misinformation during the electoral periods.
21:11
Speaker 3: Fernando Paolino is a communications professor at the University of Brazilia.
21:16
Speaker 3: He's also the president of the Latin American Communication Researchers
21:19
Speaker 3: Association and a fan of heavy metal rock music. Max
21:24
Speaker 3: in particular, he likes stuff from Raids against the Machine,
21:27
Speaker 3: Metallic and Sepultra, who he said.
21:29
Speaker 1: Stand for free speech.
21:30
Speaker 3: And I think that's like, I'm sorry for the aside,
21:32
Speaker 3: but I think it's really cool because in our conversation
21:35
Speaker 3: we got into some of these questions about how this
21:38
Speaker 3: heavy metal music has stood up for free speech in time.
21:45
Speaker 1: Anyway, he says that.
21:47
Speaker 10: The judicial system, using the constitutional principles, established some procedures
21:55
Speaker 10: to avoid misinformation and information during the campaign and also
22:00
Speaker 10: so before the campaign. Oh because Jaibo Soonardo tried to
22:05
Speaker 10: disseminate it misinformations, information or in other words, faking news
22:12
Speaker 10: against the political and electoral system.
22:16
Speaker 3: The other thing that came out of the twenty eighteen
22:18
Speaker 3: election was they created Brazil. The Brazilian courts created a
22:23
Speaker 3: precedent for making it illegal to promote conspiracy theories about
22:28
Speaker 3: the safety of the electoral system.
22:30
Speaker 1: And this is key. I spoke with Professor Fabio di
22:33
Speaker 1: Sai Silva.
22:34
Speaker 4: Because there was one candidate who you know, started spreading videos,
22:40
Speaker 4: fake videos of Tombody trying to vote for Bosona and
22:44
Speaker 4: they vote going for that at the time, and there
22:49
Speaker 4: was a case that was filed against him by the
22:51
Speaker 4: Public Prosecutor's office for violating electoral laws, and that case
22:56
Speaker 4: got up to the Superior Electoral Court, where the justices
23:02
Speaker 4: on that court ruled that if you spread conspiracy theories
23:07
Speaker 4: about the safety of our electoral mechanisms, you're violating the
23:11
Speaker 4: law and you can even lose your seat if you
23:14
Speaker 4: have been elected.
23:21
Speaker 3: Let me just pause here to explain why this is
23:23
Speaker 3: so important for Brazil, because I think a lot of
23:26
Speaker 3: people in the United States might not get this. Brazil,
23:30
Speaker 3: if you remember, is a country that returned to democracy
23:34
Speaker 3: again in just nineteen eighty five. For the twenty one
23:40
Speaker 3: years prior to this, from nineteen sixty four until nineteen
23:43
Speaker 3: eighty five, it was ruled by a brutal military dictatorship
23:46
Speaker 3: that censored speech, disappeared and killed hundreds, and imprisoned and
23:51
Speaker 3: tortured thousands. That was not long ago. My wife was
23:56
Speaker 3: born under the dictatorship. For Brazilians, the right to free
24:00
Speaker 3: speech and every other right for that matter, fall under
24:04
Speaker 3: the umbrella of their democracy. The democracy is most important.
24:08
Speaker 3: That's what comes first, and that's codified into their laws.
24:11
Speaker 3: It's codified into their constitution. As Brian Mehir mentioned earlier,
24:16
Speaker 3: their right to free speech doesn't trump their right to
24:20
Speaker 3: free and fair elections. Okay, I just want to say
24:23
Speaker 3: that fast forward to the twenty twenty two vote.
24:29
Speaker 2: Their politics couldn't be more different.
24:31
Speaker 11: But both of Brazil's main presidential candidates have gone into
24:35
Speaker 11: overdrive online ahead of.
24:36
Speaker 3: The campaigns try to push the same fake news and disinformation.
24:41
Speaker 3: You've got Bolsonado running for reelection against President Luisai Nasu
24:45
Speaker 3: Lula de Silva, who is now out of jail, clearly,
24:49
Speaker 3: and so campaigns try to push the same fake news
24:51
Speaker 3: and disinformation, in particular on behalf of Bolsonado. But the
24:54
Speaker 3: Supreme Electoral Council's ready. They demand flag posts must be
24:58
Speaker 3: taken down within two hour hours and then just one
25:01
Speaker 3: hour when it got close to the election, Bolsonado tries
25:04
Speaker 3: to raise doubt about the country's electoral system.
25:08
Speaker 1: Jeez Gratravich.
25:14
Speaker 3: W Desai Silva says that the discourse was central to
25:17
Speaker 3: Bolsonado's attempt to cause disruption in the country and to
25:22
Speaker 3: maybe open the space for military intervention.
25:25
Speaker 4: So it was very central to Bolsonago's speech as well
25:29
Speaker 4: as to the activity of his supporters on social media
25:35
Speaker 4: and what the Lula candidates he did in the Public
25:39
Speaker 4: Prosecutor's office sometimes did was to take those cases to court, saying,
25:44
Speaker 4: you know, we have a law that says that you
25:46
Speaker 4: can't say those things, and these people are saying those things, right,
25:51
Speaker 4: and so what Mogais did he was presiding over the
25:54
Speaker 4: Superior Electoral Court was to just try those cases and
26:01
Speaker 4: enforced the decisions communications to social media platforms, ordering the
26:08
Speaker 4: social media platforms to remove those forms of content. And
26:13
Speaker 4: so there were some profiles that were taken down or
26:17
Speaker 4: in the elections for spreading that conspiracy theory, all based
26:21
Speaker 4: on Brazilian law, just as he took down some posts
26:25
Speaker 4: against Bosonago by the Lula campaign that violated other aspects
26:31
Speaker 4: of Brazilian law. So that was happening on both sides.
26:35
Speaker 4: The only difference was that the Bosonaia campaign was using
26:39
Speaker 4: this to victimize itself and to say that it was
26:42
Speaker 4: being persecuted by this censorship judge.
26:47
Speaker 3: So later on, when you hear that we're going to
26:50
Speaker 3: be talking about in this episode, but from the United
26:52
Speaker 3: States and from elsewhere, you hear people talking about the
26:54
Speaker 3: censorship judge or censorship that's been happening.
26:57
Speaker 4: That accounts for a large number of cases evolving guys,
27:02
Speaker 4: and this accusation of censorship, and.
27:06
Speaker 3: Because there are measures in place to stop fake news
27:10
Speaker 3: and disinformation from being spread and trying to roll that
27:13
Speaker 3: back amid this electoral moment, Max, to stop your pause
27:17
Speaker 3: really quick. I mean, is this all making sense? Do
27:19
Speaker 3: you have any questions?
27:23
Speaker 5: Sadly, it is making sense. I mean like both both
27:28
Speaker 5: in terms of like, you know, why these things happened
27:32
Speaker 5: the way that they did and why they didn't happen
27:36
Speaker 5: the same way here in the United States, right, I mean,
27:40
Speaker 5: like because you know, you talked about like where the
27:44
Speaker 5: roads really diverged, you know, in the past, you know,
27:49
Speaker 5: five to six years, especially with how we dealt with
27:52
Speaker 5: these attempted coups. And you know, like you know, Donald
27:57
Speaker 5: Trump is not in jail. You know, Donald Trump was
28:01
Speaker 5: not barred from running for president. In fact, he used
28:05
Speaker 5: the presidency and to outrun the legal system and like,
28:12
Speaker 5: you know, his like he proving that actually power wins
28:16
Speaker 5: over principle in America and like has now thus taken
28:22
Speaker 5: you know, like all of our institutions to serve you know,
28:25
Speaker 5: his his will. But like I think, you know, in
28:30
Speaker 5: terms of you know, why we didn't do that. I mean,
28:34
Speaker 5: the answers are very complex, but I think, like what
28:37
Speaker 5: what folks just need to know is that, like, you know,
28:42
Speaker 5: should we have you know, like a more stringent, you know, uh,
28:48
Speaker 5: robust kind of understanding of you know, like a people
28:52
Speaker 5: the people's right to truthful information and and the harm
28:58
Speaker 5: the social harm, the harm to our society and our
29:03
Speaker 5: democracy and our you know, not our health and safety
29:09
Speaker 5: by treating lies and truth as you know, like having
29:12
Speaker 5: equal standing.
29:14
Speaker 1: Like that.
29:15
Speaker 5: That is a problem that really showed the differences in
29:20
Speaker 5: how you know, America and the USA and and Brazil
29:24
Speaker 5: you know, have treated this question, you know, in much
29:28
Speaker 5: deeper ways.
29:32
Speaker 3: Absolutely, absolutely, Max, I want to bring in an important
29:39
Speaker 3: figure here. His name is Alessandre de Morais Dies des
29:53
Speaker 3: Silva just mentioned him. He's a member of the Brazilian
29:57
Speaker 3: Supreme Court and he presided over the Supreme Electoral Court
30:00
Speaker 3: during the twenty twenty two elections. As you will hear today,
30:05
Speaker 3: he has been a major thorn in the side of
30:08
Speaker 3: Bolshnado and his supporters for years. But he's not necessarily
30:12
Speaker 3: left wing. He's a bit of a wild card. He
30:14
Speaker 3: was appointed by Michelle Temmer, who was the right wing
30:18
Speaker 3: president back in twenty seventeen. Bolsonado supporters understandably hate him
30:24
Speaker 3: after President Lula. He's pretty much public enemy number one
30:28
Speaker 3: for the right and they've actually compared him to Superman's arch.
30:31
Speaker 1: Enemy Lex Luthor. I know you like that reference.
30:35
Speaker 3: Matter, he kind of does actually look like him, which
30:38
Speaker 3: is the reason why they make this comparison. And Mordice
30:42
Speaker 3: is the top person who they have accused of censorship
30:46
Speaker 3: in recent years. So Trump and his supporters have joined
30:49
Speaker 3: the campaign because Alishander de Mordice has been the top
30:53
Speaker 3: Supreme Court judge in Brazil to push back on Bolsonado's
30:57
Speaker 3: measures during his presidency and the fake news over the
31:00
Speaker 3: last eight years and the power of US social media
31:04
Speaker 3: companies in Brazil in which we'll get into in a second.
31:07
Speaker 3: But as Value Desia Silva says, he didn't ever do
31:10
Speaker 3: it alone.
31:11
Speaker 4: He was backed for the most part. He was backed
31:13
Speaker 4: by two courts because he sat on the Superior Electoral
31:19
Speaker 4: Court where he handled some cases that had to do
31:22
Speaker 4: with speech, and he sits on the Supreme Court where
31:28
Speaker 4: he handled other of such cases. And like I said,
31:33
Speaker 4: he was for the most part, backed by, if not
31:36
Speaker 4: all the other justices in those courts, by the vast
31:41
Speaker 4: majority of those justices.
31:44
Speaker 3: But he was always the most visible figure. Lex Luthor
31:48
Speaker 3: but a good guy if you like democracy anyway.
31:51
Speaker 1: He was also the judge charged with investigating what would
31:54
Speaker 1: become known as Bolsonado's hate Cabinet. And this is crazy. Max.
32:02
Speaker 3: I don't know if you remember hearing about this, but imagine,
32:06
Speaker 3: if you will, a troll farm inside the White House
32:09
Speaker 3: with connections to right wing influencers within the United States
32:13
Speaker 3: who use their power, influence and social media prominence to
32:16
Speaker 3: attack political opponents.
32:19
Speaker 1: This is what you had in Bolshonado's government wall. That's
32:22
Speaker 1: that's what we got.
32:23
Speaker 9: Now maybe you have now, okay, true, but this is
32:27
Speaker 9: an actual like entity, like it's like it's it's like
32:30
Speaker 9: its own little office within you know, Brazilia, right, Fabio
32:33
Speaker 9: Decia Silva, talk to me about this.
32:35
Speaker 4: As far as we know, it was, you know, a
32:37
Speaker 4: relatively well organized and hierarchical structure where you had people
32:42
Speaker 4: whose job was to produce content. You had people then
32:47
Speaker 4: outside of the presidency, big influencers whose job was to
32:52
Speaker 4: disseminate the content.
32:56
Speaker 3: This is all coordinated, so they would target someone and
32:58
Speaker 3: say we want to take this personnel.
33:00
Speaker 1: And it wasn't always someone on the left. In many
33:03
Speaker 1: cases it was.
33:04
Speaker 3: A Bolsonada supporter who split with Bolsonado or criticized Bolsonada
33:08
Speaker 3: for some reason, and they say, this is the enemy
33:10
Speaker 3: of the day, and everyone would just you know, pilon
33:14
Speaker 3: posting whatever they could about that person to intimidate them
33:18
Speaker 3: and make them stop criticizing Bolsanada or whatever. And when
33:21
Speaker 3: you say, it's what we have now, you know, in
33:23
Speaker 3: many ways it's true, because there is no doubt in
33:26
Speaker 3: my mind that this tactic is influenced, not just by
33:29
Speaker 3: It didn't just come out of thin air in Brazil.
33:31
Speaker 3: Clearly the far right is organizing when it has to
33:33
Speaker 3: do with tactics and things like this.
33:35
Speaker 5: Yeah, and Bolsonaro's like government, it was like sort of
33:37
Speaker 5: a department within a government that was still trying to
33:40
Speaker 5: present itself as a government. In the United States, it's Trump,
33:45
Speaker 5: It's like, you know, and so everybody the fish drops
33:48
Speaker 5: from the head down, you know. So it's just like
33:50
Speaker 5: Trump is the megaphone who owns his own social media platform,
33:55
Speaker 5: like who is sicking like his entire government apparatus and
33:59
Speaker 5: his billionaire Oligark network to gobble up all the legacy media,
34:03
Speaker 5: destroy the ones that he doesn't like, YadA YadA, YadA.
34:12
Speaker 3: Nas So Aliandri is the point person for the investigations.
34:22
Speaker 3: He coordinates this together with the federal police and they
34:25
Speaker 3: work to undo this and they do an incredible job
34:28
Speaker 3: at it. So they issue search and seizure warrants, arrest warrants.
34:32
Speaker 3: Some Bolsonado influencers went to jail, others had their social
34:36
Speaker 3: media accounts blocked. And this is just another example of
34:40
Speaker 3: why what Ice is so hated by Bolsonado and his people. Anyway,
34:46
Speaker 3: twenty twenty two, Lula wins the elections, but then Bolsonado
34:54
Speaker 3: supporters hit the streets.
34:56
Speaker 4: The president's office may have conceded defeat, but many of
34:59
Speaker 4: Jebill's Naro's millions of supporters have not.
35:02
Speaker 3: They're spurred on by Bolsonado's claims of fraud in the elections.
35:07
Speaker 3: They block roads across the country. They set up vigils
35:10
Speaker 3: in front of military barracks all across Brazil, demanding that
35:15
Speaker 3: the military rise up to overturn the results, and they
35:18
Speaker 3: stay there for more than two months, and then on
35:21
Speaker 3: January eighth, twenty twenty three.
35:24
Speaker 7: Oh, so got my start?
35:26
Speaker 9: I started those?
35:27
Speaker 12: Now I started?
35:30
Speaker 3: You must say, Bolsonado supporters invade the Brazilian Congress and
35:35
Speaker 3: Supreme Court. They attack the buildings, causing more than three
35:38
Speaker 3: million dollars in damage. In a copycat performance of January sixth,
35:43
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one, Washington, Hey, got, I should probably also
35:49
Speaker 3: say that the police response, because we're talking about free
35:54
Speaker 3: speech right now, but I should probably say that the
35:56
Speaker 3: police response to the Bolsonado protests before January eighth was
36:01
Speaker 3: initially pretty lenient, like far more lenient than you would see.
36:05
Speaker 1: In the United States.
36:06
Speaker 3: If you know, thousands of people decided to block roads
36:09
Speaker 3: all across the country and then set up vigils in
36:11
Speaker 3: front of military barracks, you probably wouldn't see that, like, okay,
36:15
Speaker 3: you can stay there.
36:16
Speaker 1: But in Brazil they basically let him do what they
36:18
Speaker 1: needed to do.
36:19
Speaker 3: But after January eighth, when it was clear that like
36:22
Speaker 3: an attempted coup was underway, the response was far quicker
36:26
Speaker 3: than in the wake of January sixth in the United States.
36:30
Speaker 3: Delast they did away with the encampments.
36:35
Speaker 1: Hundreds were arrested.
36:36
Speaker 3: In Brazilia, the Supreme Court would convict more than fourteen
36:40
Speaker 3: hundred people if they're involved in the capital invasion.
36:43
Speaker 1: In Brazilia, hundreds are still in jail.
36:47
Speaker 3: I mentioned this all because, like in the United States,
36:50
Speaker 3: many of the claims that Brazil has been imprisoning political
36:53
Speaker 3: opposition come from the legal response to the country's capital invasion.
37:00
Speaker 1: In other words, some of.
37:01
Speaker 3: The people that they call political prisoners are those people
37:03
Speaker 3: who are in jail, or who were in jail, or
37:06
Speaker 3: who were convicted by the Supreme Court for their role
37:09
Speaker 3: in the capital invasion. But again, this comes back to
37:15
Speaker 3: the idea of the importance of democracy in Brazil, and
37:18
Speaker 3: particular Brazil's.
37:20
Speaker 1: Interpretation of free speech.
37:21
Speaker 3: The point is here, you have a right to protest,
37:24
Speaker 3: you have a right to speak, You even have a
37:26
Speaker 3: right to protest for months. You just don't have a
37:28
Speaker 3: right to try to overthrow the country and don't mess
37:32
Speaker 3: with the country's democracy. June thirtieth, twenty twenty three, six
37:43
Speaker 3: months after Brazil's capital invasion.
37:47
Speaker 1: Ineligibilit di doutsm ivint you dois.
37:52
Speaker 3: The Supreme Electoral Court bans Bolsonado from running for political
37:55
Speaker 3: office for eight years for spreading lies about the country's
37:58
Speaker 3: electoral system. Five judges agreed that he used government channels
38:03
Speaker 3: and social media to spread misinformation about Brazil's elections virt
38:14
Speaker 3: The ruling focused on this meeting that Bolsonado held a
38:17
Speaker 3: few months before the election, where he told foreign ambassadors
38:21
Speaker 3: that the country's electoral voting system was rigged and the
38:24
Speaker 3: elections could be manipulated. Of course, this was despite the
38:28
Speaker 3: fact that Brazil's electoral system had long been internationally recognized
38:32
Speaker 3: as safe and secure. Brazilians celebrated the ruling across the country.
38:39
Speaker 1: It was the first time a.
38:41
Speaker 3: Brazilian president had been borrowed from holding public office for
38:44
Speaker 3: election violations. Bolsonado denounced the judgment against him, calling it
38:50
Speaker 3: politically motivated.
38:55
Speaker 1: Max. Can you ever imagine something like this happening in
38:57
Speaker 1: the United States?
39:01
Speaker 2: Now?
39:02
Speaker 5: No, But you know, I think a lot of us
39:04
Speaker 5: had still had like lingering hope that our institutions would
39:10
Speaker 5: hold and that we would prove ourselves capable of this
39:14
Speaker 5: as well.
39:15
Speaker 1: But we didn't. So I just want to focus on
39:20
Speaker 1: this point.
39:21
Speaker 3: I made it at the very beginning of the episode
39:23
Speaker 3: right now, to kind of tie this into were at
39:25
Speaker 3: the beginning, remember how I mentioned that the two paths
39:28
Speaker 3: diverge between the United States and Brazil. Clearly I'm generalizing,
39:33
Speaker 3: but in many ways, this is one of those moments
39:35
Speaker 3: where you can really tell the difference. Bolsonada is blocked
39:38
Speaker 3: from holding electoral office. Meanwhile, in the United States, Trump
39:43
Speaker 3: continues being Trump.
39:44
Speaker 1: It is great to be your president. It is great.
39:53
Speaker 3: In Brazil, something else is happening. At the same time
39:56
Speaker 3: Bolsonada was banned from holding office.
39:59
Speaker 13: Congre Assuma manifesta cultras faking news.
40:04
Speaker 3: There is a nationwide debate over a new bill that
40:07
Speaker 3: would regulate social media platforms as if they were television
40:11
Speaker 3: or radio. Tech platforms push back with all of their might. Telegram,
40:16
Speaker 3: for instance, sends millions of Brazilians a message telling them
40:20
Speaker 3: that if Brazil passes the law, it will quote end
40:24
Speaker 3: freedom of expression. Congressional leaders attack the message on the
40:27
Speaker 3: floor of the Lower House.
40:29
Speaker 1: Oh speak of texts.
40:33
Speaker 3: The head of the government coalition of the Senate, Randolf Rodriguez,
40:36
Speaker 3: told press to the heads of the big tech companies
40:39
Speaker 3: and their shareholders, Brazil will not be no man's land.
40:43
Speaker 3: It's a threat against Brazilian democracy. We need regulation. The
40:47
Speaker 3: big tech companies say they are tech companies, but more
40:50
Speaker 3: and more. They're acting like communication companies, and our telecommunication
40:54
Speaker 3: sector has been regulated since nineteen sixty four. Social media
40:59
Speaker 3: is the same. Brazil had suddenly become the battleground over
41:05
Speaker 3: the power of tech companies to remain unregulated and free
41:08
Speaker 3: to push their agenda.
41:09
Speaker 13: Asma visa democracy's big texts.
41:14
Speaker 3: At the time, I sat down with David Niemer Max.
41:17
Speaker 3: He's a Brazilian University of Virginia communications professor who studied
41:21
Speaker 3: social media platforms for years, and he told me that
41:24
Speaker 3: these platforms, as we've looked at in this podcast, they
41:27
Speaker 3: are not neutral.
41:28
Speaker 14: These platforms are not just publishers. They are part of
41:32
Speaker 14: the message as well and in curating the message.
41:34
Speaker 3: And this bill is really just about bringing transparency from
41:38
Speaker 3: big texts.
41:39
Speaker 14: In terms of access to the algorithm, access to reports
41:42
Speaker 14: about the algorithm, understanding how these platforms behave so we
41:47
Speaker 14: have a more transparent way of understanding how these platforms,
41:51
Speaker 14: like the role of these platforms and everyday live. This
41:55
Speaker 14: is why the big texts are played hardball in Brazil
41:59
Speaker 14: because know that if Brazil passes this bill, then it
42:02
Speaker 14: sets the precedent and the countries will follow as well.
42:08
Speaker 3: So that was enough for these tech firms to fight
42:10
Speaker 3: tooth and nail, and the bill stalled in Congress. Max
42:15
Speaker 3: Brazilian lawmakers they want to regulate the social media platforms,
42:19
Speaker 3: say it's censorship.
42:20
Speaker 1: Where do you stand on this?
42:21
Speaker 3: Do we need regulations for tech firms and social media platforms?
42:26
Speaker 2: I mean absolutely?
42:28
Speaker 5: And when I say yes we need regulation, I don't want,
42:32
Speaker 5: you know, like the current powers that be being the
42:35
Speaker 5: ones who de regulate it, nor do I want the
42:37
Speaker 5: ones who were in power before to be the ones
42:40
Speaker 5: regulating it. So like, do I think they need to
42:42
Speaker 5: be regulated?
42:43
Speaker 1: Yes?
42:44
Speaker 5: Do I think we need a better system of like
42:47
Speaker 5: regulation and a better sort of societal understanding of what
42:51
Speaker 5: the hell regulation is and is for? Yes, But like
42:56
Speaker 5: right now, that ain't gonna happen, you know, like in
43:00
Speaker 5: this country where the worst parts of capitalism will kill
43:03
Speaker 5: the best parts of democracy. You know, any semblance of
43:06
Speaker 5: an understanding of free speech that we have had as
43:08
Speaker 5: Americans that you know, gets that free speech is important
43:13
Speaker 5: for a healthy democratic society has been eroded by this
43:19
Speaker 5: sort of like individualistic, consumer capitalist model of free speech.
43:24
Speaker 5: For me is the only thing that matters, like my
43:28
Speaker 5: rights and my ability to say whatever I want whenever
43:31
Speaker 5: I want is the only point of free speech, and
43:33
Speaker 5: no one can take that away. You know, it's like
43:36
Speaker 5: Margaret Thatcher saying society doesn't exist, right, there's only you know,
43:40
Speaker 5: a collection of like individuals in pursuit of their own
43:43
Speaker 5: self interests.
43:44
Speaker 1: That's what like they have tried to make true. In America.
43:47
Speaker 5: Out of the same country that birth so many incredible
43:51
Speaker 5: contributions to democratic history, that same country has been overtaken
43:57
Speaker 5: by this, you know, democracy killing capitalist serving system.
44:05
Speaker 3: Well, no, and it's interesting that you mentioned Margaret Thatcher
44:08
Speaker 3: because I got into this a little bit several episodes ago.
44:12
Speaker 3: We don't think that, for instance, a financial system can
44:15
Speaker 3: be completely unregulated. You have to have rules, right, It
44:18
Speaker 3: can't just be a free for all. There have to
44:20
Speaker 3: be certain rules or else what happens. You have massive monopolies,
44:23
Speaker 3: you have massive corporations with huge power, which.
44:26
Speaker 1: Which we do right now.
44:27
Speaker 3: But still there needs to be regulations all these things.
44:29
Speaker 3: And it works the same way with social media platforms
44:33
Speaker 3: and with with communications. That's why we have communications tell
44:36
Speaker 3: communications laws. That's why TV and radio are regulated, newspapers
44:40
Speaker 3: are regulated. The way that most people get their news
44:43
Speaker 3: nowadays is through social media. There has to be some
44:46
Speaker 3: form of regulation. It can't just be a free for all.
44:49
Speaker 3: But these companies are using the discourse of free speech
44:52
Speaker 3: in order to push their vision for the world and
44:56
Speaker 3: really sell their agenda, really like push their body line,
45:00
Speaker 3: their profit margin. They don't want to be regulated because
45:03
Speaker 3: you know, they're a business. And of course now they're
45:05
Speaker 3: in cahoots with with Trump even more.
45:07
Speaker 5: America is the land of deregulation, and so like when
45:11
Speaker 5: when we say we need to regulate these these companies
45:14
Speaker 5: and that we live in a more deregulated kind of society,
45:17
Speaker 5: I don't know if people outside of America fully grasp
45:21
Speaker 5: how deregulated we are. Like, I mean, look at the
45:24
Speaker 5: way that the that that big tech has forced AI
45:28
Speaker 5: into our lives with like no regulations whatsoever. Uh, and
45:34
Speaker 5: look at the look at the effects that it's having
45:37
Speaker 5: on our society, on our politics, on our children, on
45:40
Speaker 5: our sense of truth. Right. I mean, it's such a
45:42
Speaker 5: big world changing technology that has been allowed to just
45:47
Speaker 5: kind of uh flood every device that we use and
45:52
Speaker 5: change society. However, it's going to under a system where
45:56
Speaker 5: the companies that own and invest in like these techies
46:00
Speaker 5: are consolidating power and collaborating with state power right to ultimately,
46:05
Speaker 5: like you said, serve their agenda. And their agenda is
46:08
Speaker 5: basically continue to twist and bend and force the world
46:14
Speaker 5: to be something that continuously delivers more and more power
46:19
Speaker 5: and wealth to them at our expense.
46:28
Speaker 3: So I want to underline something here that underscores the
46:31
Speaker 3: question at the heart of this debate, and I think
46:35
Speaker 3: is really important. All of these tech companies are from abroad,
46:39
Speaker 3: none of them are in Brazil, mostly from the United States,
46:42
Speaker 3: but not all, and they're all pushing their corporate agenda
46:46
Speaker 3: wrapped in the discourse of free speech.
46:49
Speaker 1: But they're companies.
46:50
Speaker 3: They're concerned with profit, like you were just talking about, Max,
46:53
Speaker 3: and yet they're actually attacking the sovereignty of foreign countries
46:58
Speaker 3: in the name of free speech.
47:01
Speaker 1: There is there's something just so wrong with this.
47:05
Speaker 3: But because of the way that this discourse kind of
47:09
Speaker 3: permeates into the mainstream or the way that it's covered
47:12
Speaker 3: and the way that they sell it, that's not the
47:14
Speaker 3: way it's that that people read this. You know, it's
47:17
Speaker 3: usually saying, oh, well, Brazil is censoring speech or whatever else.
47:20
Speaker 3: But here's the thing, Max, Brazil's battle with the tech
47:23
Speaker 3: platforms is just heating up. Fast forward one year August
47:30
Speaker 3: twenty twenty.
47:31
Speaker 9: Four, Brazil's dispute with tech billionaire Elon Musk is heating up.
47:36
Speaker 1: One of the steps.
47:38
Speaker 3: Elon Musk richest man on Earth, owner of Tesla SpaceX,
47:41
Speaker 3: old body of Trump's or I guess frenemy now perhaps,
47:45
Speaker 3: of course, he ran DOGE Department of Government Efficiency in
47:48
Speaker 3: the first one hundred and twenty days of Trump's second term.
47:51
Speaker 3: Remember that he bought Twitter in twenty twenty two and
47:54
Speaker 3: transformed it into x SO. In August twenty twenty four,
47:58
Speaker 3: he begins to butt heads with our friend, Brazilian Supreme
48:01
Speaker 3: Court Justice Alishandre Moris, who we introduced earlier. Modice orders
48:06
Speaker 3: x to take down a number of users on Musk's
48:09
Speaker 3: platform who are actively sharing fake news online and who
48:13
Speaker 3: in some cases are wanted by the Brazilian judiciary. They
48:17
Speaker 3: are all supporters of far right president Polsonado. And here's
48:20
Speaker 3: just one example of someone Mode ordered to be taken offline,
48:24
Speaker 3: Alan Lopez Losantos.
48:26
Speaker 1: He's a Brazilian.
48:27
Speaker 3: Blogger who fled to the United States after being under
48:30
Speaker 3: investigation in two Supreme Court inquiries for threatening justices, spreading
48:35
Speaker 3: false content online and financing anti democratic acts. Musk refuses
48:42
Speaker 3: Modice's order. He calls it censorship.
48:45
Speaker 1: His app X still works in the country.
48:47
Speaker 3: But he pulls his team out of Brazil so they
48:49
Speaker 3: can't face reprisals from the Brazilian judiciary.
48:53
Speaker 1: In response, on August thirtieth.
48:54
Speaker 15: A Brazilian Supreme Court judge has ordered the immediate suspension
48:58
Speaker 15: of the social media platform X in Brazil, meaning people
49:01
Speaker 15: there can no longer access or use it. Ex owner
49:04
Speaker 15: Elon Musk, failed to meet a deadline set by the
49:07
Speaker 15: court to name a new legal representative in the country
49:10
Speaker 15: the Brazilian.
49:11
Speaker 3: Court, Musk wrote, free speech is the bedrock of democracy
49:15
Speaker 3: and an unelected pseudo judge in Brazil is destroying it
49:18
Speaker 3: for political purposes. I spoke with Fabsi Silva about this.
49:22
Speaker 13: Elon Musk is a businessman, and like all businessmen, he
49:27
Speaker 13: doesn't want to see his business regulated.
49:30
Speaker 4: And this is what the.
49:31
Speaker 13: Brazilian judiciary is doing indirectly, to the extent that mister
49:37
Speaker 13: Musk's platform is hosting speech that's contrary to Brazilian law
49:42
Speaker 13: in different ways, and the judiciary is pushing back against that.
49:49
Speaker 3: Again, these are corporations pushing their bottom line, and Mosque
49:53
Speaker 3: is also a free speed absolutist aligned with the far right.
49:57
Speaker 3: Ali Chandani Morais pushes back, defending his opinions.
50:03
Speaker 7: Was being.
50:05
Speaker 13: Display shell.
50:08
Speaker 3: He says, the Brazilian people know the freedom of speech
50:11
Speaker 3: is not the freedom of aggression. They know that the
50:14
Speaker 3: freedom of speech is not the freedom to spread hate, racism, misogyny,
50:18
Speaker 3: and homophobia.
50:19
Speaker 16: David Niemer, the Brazilian politicians have very specific interest in
50:23
Speaker 16: keeping Twitter the way it is. You know, they prevail
50:27
Speaker 16: because of misinformation, They prevail because of hate speech that
50:30
Speaker 16: they promote, and in Brazil that's not allowed. So they
50:35
Speaker 16: need a platform to create that sort of engagement and
50:38
Speaker 16: build their base. So it's like a win win situation
50:41
Speaker 16: for both of them.
50:48
Speaker 3: X was blocked for forty days until the company finally
50:51
Speaker 3: gave in. Musk paid the fines and began taking down
50:55
Speaker 3: the accounts ordered removed by Mordies. So in the end
51:00
Speaker 3: did everything that what Ice wanted them to. But Musk
51:03
Speaker 3: created this whole problem for himself in the meantime and
51:07
Speaker 3: actually convinced thousands, if not hundreds of thousands or millions
51:11
Speaker 3: of Brazilians that they should move to other platforms because
51:14
Speaker 3: during those forty days, they couldn't use Twitter, so a
51:16
Speaker 3: bunch of people started moving to Blue Sky or Mastadon
51:19
Speaker 3: or other places.
51:20
Speaker 1: Max, did you see this unfolding? Do you remember watching this?
51:24
Speaker 5: Not only do I remember watching it, I mean I've
51:27
Speaker 5: lived through it, and I've tried to navigate a media
51:30
Speaker 5: organization through it. You know, Musk buying Twitter was a
51:36
Speaker 5: seismic change to our industry. Are the entire kind of
51:42
Speaker 5: way that our public discourse operated and who participated in it, right,
51:49
Speaker 5: I mean, the Twitter of old was in no way perfect,
51:52
Speaker 5: none of these platforms are. But it was a space
51:55
Speaker 5: where you know, politicians, corporations, journalists, you know, artists like
52:03
Speaker 5: you know, public figures of all sorts like kind of
52:06
Speaker 5: had access to each other in a way that you
52:09
Speaker 5: know they never had before. And it is not that
52:14
Speaker 5: after Musk bought it, And I would actually like, you know,
52:19
Speaker 5: just just push back when you called Elon Musk a
52:22
Speaker 5: free speech absolutist. He is absolutely not a free speech absolutist.
52:27
Speaker 5: I mean, I think, like so many you know, people
52:32
Speaker 5: on the right, particularly people in power on the right,
52:39
Speaker 5: you know, like Musk embodies what you know in the
52:42
Speaker 5: Internet age has come to be known as as will
52:45
Speaker 5: Hoyt's Law, which boils down to this you know quote
52:51
Speaker 5: which was actually left in a comment section, you know,
52:54
Speaker 5: like on the Internet, but became it. So it's so
52:57
Speaker 5: succinctly articulated this problem that it's become a meme in
53:00
Speaker 5: and of itself. But will Hout's law states that conservatism
53:06
Speaker 5: consists of exactly one proposition, to wit, there must be
53:09
Speaker 5: in groups whom the law protects but does not bind,
53:13
Speaker 5: alongside out groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
53:17
Speaker 5: Right And like, I think this this applies not just
53:21
Speaker 5: to kind of like how people like Elon Musk see
53:24
Speaker 5: free speech. You know, it's always free speech for me
53:27
Speaker 5: and the and the people who agree with me, and
53:30
Speaker 5: not for thee. Musk has censored plenty of people on X,
53:34
Speaker 5: you know, like Lusk artificially alters the algorithm so that
53:39
Speaker 5: it's artificially like visibilizing certain views over others. You know
53:45
Speaker 5: that that's the way that this stuff operates. And then
53:48
Speaker 5: you add on top of that, like you said, like
53:50
Speaker 5: just the bare fact of you know, these people are
53:54
Speaker 5: businessmen and capitalists whose primary goal is to you know,
53:59
Speaker 5: like get more money and power for themselves.
54:02
Speaker 1: Yeah.
54:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think that's so important because what we
54:05
Speaker 3: often see is so called self described free speech absolutists
54:11
Speaker 3: use that discourse to say that, oh, I believe in
54:15
Speaker 3: free speech for everybody, and it's part of this image,
54:17
Speaker 3: which is which is exactly what Musk is when he
54:20
Speaker 3: bought then Twitter now X, his whole thing was, oh,
54:24
Speaker 3: I believe in free speech and everyone should have it.
54:26
Speaker 3: But the end of the day, what they're actually doing
54:29
Speaker 3: is canceling and censoring people that don't believe in their viewpoint.
54:34
Speaker 5: And this is again the continuing line of like how
54:39
Speaker 5: the sort of media ecosystem you know, like in America,
54:44
Speaker 5: you know, like it's not just Musk and X. This
54:48
Speaker 5: is why you know, the freaking Ellison family, you know,
54:51
Speaker 5: like who just you know, like acquired a Warner Brothers,
54:55
Speaker 5: you know, like also has control of CBS and a
54:59
Speaker 5: controlling stake the American owned TikTok.
55:02
Speaker 4: Right.
55:02
Speaker 5: This is why Silicon Valley oligarch and Trump advisor Mark
55:06
Speaker 5: and Dreesen is like, you know, a what the primary
55:10
Speaker 5: backer of sub stack, Right, This is why Jeff Bezos
55:14
Speaker 5: bought the Washington Post, Right, This is why Mark Zuckerberg
55:19
Speaker 5: controls not just Facebook, but Instagram and WhatsApp and threads
55:24
Speaker 5: and so much more. You can subvert the sort of
55:29
Speaker 5: democratic principles of a healthy public sphere in which truth
55:34
Speaker 5: wins out through debate, inquiry and honest, open discussion by
55:40
Speaker 5: you know, buying all of the platforms and networks and
55:44
Speaker 5: you know, like artificially imposing like your designs and desires
55:51
Speaker 5: on the discourse and subject everyone else who depends on
55:55
Speaker 5: it for their information. That's that's kind of how things
55:59
Speaker 5: work in this country.
56:07
Speaker 3: And here's the thing. It's not just the tech platforms.
56:11
Speaker 3: Far right activists have also been pushing their agenda of
56:14
Speaker 3: free speech absolutism or quote free speech absolutism and using
56:19
Speaker 3: it to cry censorship against Brazil. Here's an example.
56:25
Speaker 17: The hearing of the sub Committy will come to the
56:26
Speaker 17: water and I will welcome our very distinguished witnesses.
56:29
Speaker 3: And May seventh, twenty twenty four, Republican leaders held a
56:33
Speaker 3: hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington in the House Foreign
56:36
Speaker 3: Affairs Committee. It's titled Brazil a Crisis of Democracy, Freedom
56:40
Speaker 3: and the Rule of Law. The hearing was chaired by
56:43
Speaker 3: New Jersey Republican representative Chris Smith, he kicked off the meeting.
56:47
Speaker 17: Since late twenty twenty two, Brazilians have been subject to
56:50
Speaker 17: grave human rights violations committed by Brazilian officials on a
56:55
Speaker 17: vast scale. Documented right violations in Brazil include the political abuse,
57:00
Speaker 17: use of legal procedures to persecute political opposition, including jailing
57:05
Speaker 17: opposition figures on various charges, violations of freedom of speech
57:09
Speaker 17: and media freedom, including persecution of journalists, the silencing of
57:15
Speaker 17: opposition media, banning individuals from social media, thinly veiled censorship
57:20
Speaker 17: laws claiming to fight disinformation, and many violations of rule
57:25
Speaker 17: of law and judicial malfeasis.
57:29
Speaker 3: If you heard what he was saying, you would imagine
57:32
Speaker 3: that the country had been taken over by a tinpot dictatorship,
57:36
Speaker 3: and not just saved from an attempted coup. Among the
57:39
Speaker 3: individuals invited to speak are Paolo Figiedo, the son of
57:42
Speaker 3: the former Brazilian dictator, Christopher Favlukski, the Canadian founder of
57:47
Speaker 3: the video platform Rumble, considered the right wing YouTube, and unsurprisingly,
57:51
Speaker 3: they painted a terribly disturbing vision of Brazil, as if
57:55
Speaker 3: the country had fallen into an authoritarian censorship regime.
58:00
Speaker 1: There's one single name behind every one of these decisions.
58:04
Speaker 1: That's Alexandra Demries. Remember this name. He's the de factor
58:08
Speaker 1: dictator of Brazil. Rumble will never back down from our mission.
58:12
Speaker 3: We are the tip of the spear in this fight,
58:13
Speaker 3: and we relish that.
58:15
Speaker 18: We urge everyone, especially the US State Department, to join us.
58:21
Speaker 3: The other person invited to speak at the hearing the
58:23
Speaker 3: only legal expert invited, in fact, Brazilian University of Oklahoma
58:27
Speaker 3: professor Fabi de Sayi Silva. Remember I've been speaking with
58:30
Speaker 3: him throughout the episode.
58:32
Speaker 18: In your assessment, how high was the risk of the
58:36
Speaker 18: coup succeeding had then President Bolsanaro managed to gain the
58:41
Speaker 18: support of these branches of the armed forces.
58:46
Speaker 4: Thank you, Congressman. He was very high. I believe when
58:49
Speaker 4: you draft a decree outlining what's going to happen once
58:54
Speaker 4: the military takeover, which in some versions of this drafting
58:59
Speaker 4: even included the arrest of justice Mogays, I think you're,
59:04
Speaker 4: you know, trying to anticipate what you're going to do
59:07
Speaker 4: that when push comes to show.
59:09
Speaker 3: And Value told me that he was there to basically
59:12
Speaker 3: clarify that in Brazil.
59:14
Speaker 4: It has been with a violation of the law to
59:19
Speaker 4: articulate speech that's intended to undermine confidence, but public confidence
59:24
Speaker 4: in the electoral system if you don't have any proof
59:27
Speaker 4: of that, as well as to as I was mentioning before,
59:33
Speaker 4: pit the military against civilian power and incentivize the military
59:39
Speaker 4: to take over because of the history of the country.
59:44
Speaker 4: So you know, one of the reasons why I was
59:46
Speaker 4: there was precisely to share my knowledge of Brazilian law
59:52
Speaker 4: and to show to the people in Congress that you
59:56
Speaker 4: cannot say that the Brazilian judiciary is abusing its powers
1:00:00
Speaker 4: because it's holding people accountable for, you know, committing those
1:00:05
Speaker 4: violations of the law. And even if in the United
1:00:09
Speaker 4: States these things would not be necessarily a crime or
1:00:12
Speaker 4: could not be criminalized in Brazil, it's been well established
1:00:18
Speaker 4: in Brazil and law that you can do those things,
1:00:21
Speaker 4: you can't you know, convey those messages, especially if you
1:00:26
Speaker 4: are in office, sitting in the President's office and therefore
1:00:31
Speaker 4: having all that attention at your disposal as the chief
1:00:36
Speaker 4: executive in the country. Right.
1:00:43
Speaker 3: So that was twenty twenty four, and that's happening on
1:00:45
Speaker 3: Capitol Hillmax. These are the debates that are happening in Washington,
1:00:48
Speaker 3: which are then pushing this image that there is censorship
1:00:52
Speaker 3: happening in Brazil, and it's the same thing we've seen
1:00:55
Speaker 3: from Trump time and time again and his people is
1:00:58
Speaker 3: that if you repeat a lie law enough then it
1:01:01
Speaker 3: becomes truth. But the threats from Washington and Silicon Valley
1:01:05
Speaker 3: are ongoing.
1:01:06
Speaker 15: Also developing this morning, the Trump administration placing sanctions on
1:01:10
Speaker 15: a Brazilian Supreme Court justice over concerns of human rights
1:01:13
Speaker 15: violations and politicized prosecutions.
1:01:16
Speaker 3: Just last year, alongside the fifty percent tariff on Brazil
1:01:19
Speaker 3: that Trump levied that we started this episode, the United
1:01:22
Speaker 3: States also issued sanctions on Supreme Court Justice Alishandre Morais
1:01:27
Speaker 3: and his wife.
1:01:28
Speaker 6: Well look, Maris is an activist judge that abused his
1:01:31
Speaker 6: authority by engaging in a targeted and politically motivated effort
1:01:34
Speaker 6: designed to silence political critics through the issuance of secret
1:01:38
Speaker 6: orders compelling online platforms, including US social media companies, banning
1:01:43
Speaker 6: the accounts of individuals for posting protected speech. The actions
1:01:46
Speaker 6: taken by Marice impact US persons and companies, and the
1:01:50
Speaker 6: United States does not tolerate maligned foreign actors who abuse
1:01:53
Speaker 6: their positions of authority to undermine freedom of expression.
1:01:55
Speaker 4: Of American citizens.
1:02:04
Speaker 3: What Ice called the sanctions illegal and deplorable. He said
1:02:07
Speaker 3: the court would not quote bow to cowardly and fruitless threats,
1:02:12
Speaker 3: and that he would ignore the sanctions. The sanctions were
1:02:15
Speaker 3: later dropped in December of last year, shortly after Trump
1:02:18
Speaker 3: also removed the fifty percent tariff he levied on Brazil.
1:02:22
Speaker 1: But the thing is is here again.
1:02:25
Speaker 3: It's the use of this vision of bitterly fake news
1:02:29
Speaker 3: and false a false narrative to spread these lies in
1:02:32
Speaker 3: order to undermine another, a democratic country.
1:02:37
Speaker 8: Brian Mehre, the American far right, supported by these crypto
1:02:43
Speaker 8: fascist libertarians in Silicon Valley like Aylon Mosque, has teamed
1:02:49
Speaker 8: up through Steve Bannon, the point man between the US
1:02:52
Speaker 8: far right and the Brazilian far right and the Bolscenaros
1:02:56
Speaker 8: and their allies, to try and force a change in
1:03:00
Speaker 8: Brazilian laws citing free speech absolutism, to legalize Nazis in
1:03:05
Speaker 8: Brazil and other hate groups and to undo the hate
1:03:09
Speaker 8: speech legislation and things like that. And the reason that
1:03:13
Speaker 8: Silicon Valley tech fascist social media companies are interested in
1:03:18
Speaker 8: this is that it's to eliminate any kind of liability
1:03:21
Speaker 8: for their platforms being used to disseminate hate speech, and
1:03:26
Speaker 8: so they're interested in weakening Brazil's regulatory atmosphere so that
1:03:30
Speaker 8: they can't be held liable for crimes currently crimes committed
1:03:35
Speaker 8: on their platforms by Brazilians.
1:03:44
Speaker 3: And the problem Max is that this is not the
1:03:47
Speaker 3: end of what the far right and the US campaign
1:03:51
Speaker 3: is planning against the government in Brazil. There are high
1:03:54
Speaker 3: stakes elections happening again this October. President Lula will be
1:03:58
Speaker 3: running against him is Bolsonado's senator son Flaviable Sonadi.
1:04:04
Speaker 12: At the end of this last year, my father gave
1:04:07
Speaker 12: me the greatest mission of my life to ron four
1:04:11
Speaker 12: president in his place in Octoba Juana six elections.
1:04:18
Speaker 3: Flavio recently wrote to Marco Rubio and told him that
1:04:21
Speaker 3: if he won, he would be willing to place a
1:04:23
Speaker 3: transition team at the disposal of the Trump administration. Meanwhile,
1:04:29
Speaker 3: Trump is considering new tariffs on Brazil over the country's
1:04:31
Speaker 3: financial system of payments, and the US government has placed
1:04:34
Speaker 3: Brazil's two largest gangs on the US Foreign terrorist list.
1:04:39
Speaker 3: So it all is clearly leading up to the October vote.
1:04:43
Speaker 3: It's clear that Trump and his people will be pulling
1:04:44
Speaker 3: out all the stops to influence the elections in the
1:04:47
Speaker 3: same way they've done all across so many other countries
1:04:50
Speaker 3: in Latin America. Brazil at this point is one of
1:04:53
Speaker 3: only a handful of countries still on the left in
1:04:56
Speaker 3: Latin America. All of the others have fallen to Trump's
1:04:59
Speaker 3: sphere of influence, and many are concerned that the US
1:05:03
Speaker 3: pressure is going to only get worse in the coming months,
1:05:06
Speaker 3: and it will likely be using free speech as a weapon,
1:05:10
Speaker 3: using it in absolute as free speech terms.
1:05:13
Speaker 1: Brian Meher told me.
1:05:14
Speaker 3: That they've been successful in Brazil with that language because
1:05:18
Speaker 3: it's become a rallying cry for the far right, and so.
1:05:21
Speaker 8: Free speech is one of those things. It's on their
1:05:23
Speaker 8: list of things that you know, weaponizing anti corruption, rheloric
1:05:27
Speaker 8: against leftist politicians, and this take of free speech is
1:05:32
Speaker 8: definitely a weaponization of the concept of free speech.
1:05:36
Speaker 3: But he says it's not necessarily an end in itself.
1:05:40
Speaker 3: It's just a tactic for the far right to achieve
1:05:42
Speaker 3: its goals.
1:05:43
Speaker 8: That's what it really comes down to. I don't even
1:05:45
Speaker 8: know how much these tech fascists even believe in their
1:05:51
Speaker 8: own ideology. It's just spread around because the end goal
1:05:54
Speaker 8: from a business standpoint is to have total regulatory liberty.
1:05:59
Speaker 8: Freedom I feel bad calling a freedom, but you know,
1:06:03
Speaker 8: total deregulation so that they can't have any kind of scrutiny,
1:06:09
Speaker 8: they can't be punished anyway for collectively brainwashing large segments
1:06:15
Speaker 8: of the population to support in them and their goals.
1:06:25
Speaker 3: This is a really useful tool, this kind of absolutist
1:06:30
Speaker 3: free speech framework. And we've seen over these platforms speech
1:06:35
Speaker 3: has become privatized.
1:06:37
Speaker 1: You know, it's not about our right to speak freely.
1:06:40
Speaker 3: What these tech platforms and absolutist free speeches are pushing
1:06:44
Speaker 3: is the censorship of other viewpoints of free speech in
1:06:48
Speaker 3: the name of their vision of free speech. It's again,
1:06:50
Speaker 3: like I've talked about so oftentimes in this podcast, censorship
1:06:55
Speaker 3: in the name of free speech.
1:07:00
Speaker 5: Very reality of the world that we live in today
1:07:02
Speaker 5: kind of proves that free speech, you know, needs to
1:07:05
Speaker 5: mean more than just like my ability to say, you know,
1:07:09
Speaker 5: what I want when I want. It's much more complicated
1:07:12
Speaker 5: than that. And these big tech you know, oligarchs and
1:07:16
Speaker 5: the platforms that they own, the oligarchs who own the legal,
1:07:20
Speaker 5: the legacy media that we still have, they are you know,
1:07:25
Speaker 5: proving that you know, you can accomplish censorship in a
1:07:30
Speaker 5: number of ways while still sort of ostensibly bearing the
1:07:36
Speaker 5: flag of freedom of speech.
1:07:38
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Max, I want to close on a couple of
1:07:41
Speaker 3: thoughts here that I think are really important for this discussion,
1:07:46
Speaker 3: and also that that shine a little bit of positive
1:07:49
Speaker 3: light on things where they are right now, despite everything First,
1:07:55
Speaker 3: in Brazil, according to recent surveys, roughly sixty percent of
1:07:59
Speaker 3: percent billions are in favor of some form of social
1:08:03
Speaker 3: media regulation. According to a Nexus poll from this time
1:08:08
Speaker 3: last year, eighty percent of Brazilians believe social media companies
1:08:12
Speaker 3: should take more responsibility for the content they publish online.
1:08:16
Speaker 3: Sixty percent of those surveyeds say they believed digital platforms
1:08:19
Speaker 3: should remove more posts than they do, and sixty percent
1:08:23
Speaker 3: of Brazilians said that regulating these platforms is essential to
1:08:27
Speaker 3: tackling anti democratic content and hate speech. There is a
1:08:32
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen Brazilian law titled the Brazilian Civil Rights Framework
1:08:36
Speaker 3: for the Internet, which was really important when it came out,
1:08:40
Speaker 3: and it can be used to hold companies accountable in
1:08:44
Speaker 3: some cases, in particular when they don't apply with court
1:08:48
Speaker 3: orders to remove content. But that doesn't specifically regulate tech
1:08:51
Speaker 3: companies or apply in other cases. But that's one thing
1:08:56
Speaker 3: that can be used and is used. Other thing that
1:09:00
Speaker 3: people are thinking about is how to democratize this space
1:09:05
Speaker 3: and particularly around what we want public policy. So I
1:09:11
Speaker 3: spoke with Fernando Paulino. He's a communications professor from the
1:09:15
Speaker 3: University of Brazilia. He's the guy we heard up from
1:09:18
Speaker 3: up top, and I love how he says this.
1:09:21
Speaker 1: Max.
1:09:22
Speaker 3: He said, we should be thinking in terms not of freedom,
1:09:25
Speaker 3: but of fairness.
1:09:27
Speaker 10: It's important to establish these parameters, especially during electoral periods,
1:09:34
Speaker 10: to organize a fair competition.
1:09:38
Speaker 4: You know.
1:09:38
Speaker 10: I think maybe we need to use this word as well.
1:09:43
Speaker 10: Maybe the society and needs more fair, more accountable, more
1:09:51
Speaker 10: equal principles to defend and promote democrats.
1:10:01
Speaker 3: We talk about free and fair elections, but oftentimes there's
1:10:04
Speaker 3: so many barriers to actually holding those elections. But the
1:10:06
Speaker 3: same thing works within the communications sphere and in social media.
1:10:10
Speaker 1: How do we.
1:10:11
Speaker 3: Create equal principles to defend and promote democracy and to
1:10:17
Speaker 3: replace the authoritarian push that we've seen recently. And I
1:10:21
Speaker 3: think what's important about this is also to look at
1:10:25
Speaker 3: something that Brazil has been really successful at over the
1:10:28
Speaker 3: last thirty forty years since democratization. Like I've mentioned in
1:10:31
Speaker 3: this episode, Brazilians really care about their democracy, and so
1:10:35
Speaker 3: one of the things that they've done really well since
1:10:38
Speaker 3: the end of the dictatorship is pushed to try and
1:10:41
Speaker 3: incorporate all sectors of society in the decision making of public.
1:10:48
Speaker 10: Policies, to involve social organizations, universities, researchers, to expand the
1:10:58
Speaker 10: debate about communication and democracy, and I think especially in
1:11:05
Speaker 10: terms of the social media regulation and the internet context
1:11:09
Speaker 10: right now, this debate expanded a lot with more people
1:11:16
Speaker 10: involved in this discussion, and I.
1:11:19
Speaker 3: Think this is really really important because what Trump and
1:11:24
Speaker 3: Silicon Valley tech models are largely demanding is corporate free speech,
1:11:29
Speaker 3: not free speech for everybody. They want speech that can
1:11:33
Speaker 3: be decided behind closed doors.
1:11:35
Speaker 1: They want speech where there's.
1:11:36
Speaker 3: Out hidden algorithms in which nobody knows what they are
1:11:40
Speaker 3: and they're decided by Mosk or some high end people
1:11:44
Speaker 3: within these social media firms.
1:11:46
Speaker 1: That is not free.
1:11:47
Speaker 3: That does not create a free free media, That doesn't
1:11:50
Speaker 3: create free speech. It's the exact opposite. And so what
1:11:54
Speaker 3: Fernando talks about is the need for diversity when we
1:12:00
Speaker 3: build public policies around things like social media, online speech,
1:12:04
Speaker 3: and regulations like we do we need to think about
1:12:08
Speaker 3: how do we make these decisions in which more people
1:12:12
Speaker 3: are included, other voices are included, and not just rich
1:12:16
Speaker 3: powerful men from Silicon Valley. I think this is I
1:12:19
Speaker 3: think this is really important when we like as we're
1:12:22
Speaker 3: looking forward and trying to grapple with these with these questions.
1:12:28
Speaker 1: You know, free speech.
1:12:29
Speaker 3: The whole idea of free speech is it has to
1:12:31
Speaker 3: be at the root of our democracy, right and if
1:12:36
Speaker 3: if it is leading us in the direction of less speech,
1:12:40
Speaker 3: if it is leading us in the direction not of
1:12:42
Speaker 3: democracy but of authoritarianism, if it's leading us in the
1:12:46
Speaker 3: direction of a space where less people have a voice
1:12:50
Speaker 3: and less people have the ability for their speech to
1:12:54
Speaker 3: be heard, then something is drastically wrong. And this goes
1:12:59
Speaker 3: back a little bit max to what I was talking
1:13:01
Speaker 3: about in the last episode with Mary Anne Franks.
1:13:06
Speaker 11: The first amendments. One job is to keep us from
1:13:08
Speaker 11: becoming a totalitarian society. That's its primary job. Everything else
1:13:12
Speaker 11: the secondary. And if your free speech doctrine, if your
1:13:15
Speaker 11: free speech law isn't keeping us from sliding into fascism,
1:13:18
Speaker 11: but is instead accelerating our path to fascism. Then it's
1:13:21
Speaker 11: not working.
1:13:22
Speaker 3: And I think we need to look at what do
1:13:24
Speaker 3: we want from our free speech, what do we want
1:13:27
Speaker 3: of our media sphere. And this is something that people
1:13:31
Speaker 3: in Brazil are trying to grapple with. When they weren't
1:13:34
Speaker 3: able to pass that the social media regulation law, then
1:13:38
Speaker 3: they started to piece meal things, and so they started
1:13:41
Speaker 3: to look at, Okay, well let's pass a law having
1:13:44
Speaker 3: to do with children and social media. Let's look at
1:13:47
Speaker 3: this other case. And so they're looking at how to
1:13:49
Speaker 3: break this apart and pass these smaller laws in order
1:13:53
Speaker 3: to still get in the direction they want to get into.
1:13:56
Speaker 3: We need to understand speech within democracy and if that
1:14:01
Speaker 3: is being undermined, as it clearly is right now, and
1:14:04
Speaker 3: when countries like the United States are using the discourse
1:14:07
Speaker 3: of free speech to attack and undermine the democratic principles
1:14:11
Speaker 3: of a foreign sovereign nation, we absolutely have.
1:14:14
Speaker 1: A problem and we need to understand it like that.
1:14:19
Speaker 5: You know, Mike, you said earlier that Brazilians are very
1:14:22
Speaker 5: proud of their democracy. I don't think a lot of
1:14:24
Speaker 5: Americans are anymore. I think that we grew up to
1:14:28
Speaker 5: be to feel proud about it. But but like right now,
1:14:31
Speaker 5: there's so little to be proud about. But also, like
1:14:36
Speaker 5: you know, I remember growing up again in the nineties
1:14:39
Speaker 5: and early odds and and sort of being berated by
1:14:42
Speaker 5: older generations of how we didn't know what these freedoms meant.
1:14:45
Speaker 5: We didn't know what it meant to sacrifice and die
1:14:48
Speaker 5: for our country and the and the freedom, freedom of
1:14:50
Speaker 5: speech and freedom of religion and YadA, YadA, YadA, and
1:14:54
Speaker 5: like you know, that was that was the sort of
1:14:56
Speaker 5: message that that we got. But simultaneous with you should
1:15:00
Speaker 5: be grateful for all the rights that you have and
1:15:03
Speaker 5: go live the best life that you can with them.
1:15:07
Speaker 5: And like, now is the moment where we got to
1:15:11
Speaker 5: fight for something. And it's not just something, we gotta
1:15:14
Speaker 5: fight for everything. Everything that we hold dear is at
1:15:18
Speaker 5: risk of going away. Democracy and all the people who
1:15:22
Speaker 5: fought for that idea over the centuries is at risk.
1:15:26
Speaker 5: And we are now the ones who have to pick
1:15:29
Speaker 5: up that fight. And I don't know about you, brother,
1:15:32
Speaker 5: but like I'm ready to rumble, like like I said,
1:15:36
Speaker 5: like I like, I ain't going down without a fight,
1:15:39
Speaker 5: and I'm not giving up on these principles. I'm there's this,
1:15:43
Speaker 5: this is too beautiful of a country. This is too
1:15:46
Speaker 5: important of an idea and people, people's lives are worth
1:15:52
Speaker 5: too much to just give up on so that Jeff
1:15:56
Speaker 5: Bezos can have three more yachts and Elon Musk can
1:16:00
Speaker 5: have another trillion dollars and a space rocket to Mars.
1:16:04
Speaker 5: No no, no, no, no no no. That is unacceptable
1:16:09
Speaker 5: and I will not accept it. Neither will you, and
1:16:12
Speaker 5: neither should anyone listening to this.
1:16:14
Speaker 1: Max, thank you so much for joining me man. I
1:16:17
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. It's been fantastic.
1:16:19
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me brother. Sorry I talked so much, folks.
1:16:33
Speaker 3: That is all for now, Thanks for listening. Next time
1:16:36
Speaker 3: we hop across the pond to Europe to take a
1:16:39
Speaker 3: deep look at their definition of free speech. How countries
1:16:42
Speaker 3: there are fighting disinformation and also grappling with these same
1:16:46
Speaker 3: questions of social media. That's next time on the Battle
1:16:50
Speaker 3: for Free Speech. If you enjoyed today's podcast and you
1:16:55
Speaker 3: like this series, please do us a favor. Go to
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Speaker 3: or tell a friend about it and leave us a
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Speaker 3: comment or a review. It really helps to spread the
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Speaker 3: word about the show and the state of free speech
1:17:09
Speaker 3: in the United States.
1:17:10
Speaker 1: Today.
1:17:11
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Speaker 3: search for the Battle for Free Speech. If you'd like
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Speaker 3: to find out more about the Battle for Free Speech
1:17:20
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Speaker 3: at Patreon dot com, forward slash Mfox, or you can
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Speaker 3: follow the link in.
1:17:27
Speaker 1: The show notes there.
1:17:28
Speaker 3: You can also support my work become a monthly sustainer
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Speaker 3: on this podcast and my other reporting across Latin America.
1:17:36
Speaker 3: This really helps me to continue to do.
1:17:38
Speaker 1: This important work.
1:17:40
Speaker 3: I'm adding links to all the people who I spoke
1:17:42
Speaker 3: with today in the show notes. A huge thanks and
1:17:45
Speaker 3: shout out to Max Alvarez. You can find as Working
1:17:48
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Speaker 3: dot com. A Free Speech is production of the Real News.
1:18:02
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening, See you next time.