Electoral court President Barroso threatens to suspend Telegram: Brazil is not a place where just anything can be said

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Supreme Court (STF) Justice and Superior Electoral Court (TSE) President Luís Roberto Barroso again commented on the suspension of Telegram in Brazil. “I think that a platform, whatever it is, that doesn’t want to submit to Brazilian laws should simply be suspended,” he said in an interview with O Globo newspaper.

“Brazil is not a place where just anything can be said for apps that apologize for Nazism and terrorism, sell weapons, or host the attacks on democracy that our generation fought so hard for,” he accused.

Barroso said that the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) or the STF could decide whether to block Telegram. Still, he thought it was important for Congress to formulate a specific law requiring digital platforms used in Brazil to have a representative in the country.

“Precisely to preserve democracy, we do not want platforms that want to destroy democracy and freedom of expression to be able to move freely here,” he stressed.

Telegram is said to be a breeding ground for fake news, drug and gun sales, and fake invoices. Barroso stated that he didn’t like banning a platform earlier this month. However, he also said that he “doesn’t like the idea of arms sales on a platform.”

De facto, however, it is a platform where many Bolsonaristas have “fled” after being censored by WhatsApp.

Judges are supposed to be impartial, but in Brazil, the supreme Justices are the true masters of the country and will do anything to bring the left back to power. In this sense, they are the real danger to democracy, as their politicization and the resulting overstepping of their own powers leads to a lot of bad blood with the executive branch.

Therefore, it is not that Jair Bolsonaro is trying to curtail the judiciary but that the judiciary is trying to neutralize the executive. Accusing Bolsonaro of being a danger to democracy is seen by many as pure mockery.

According to a survey conducted by the website MobileTime in collaboration with the online research firm Opinion Box, Telegram is currently installed on 53% of smartphones in the country, compared to only 15% in 2018. The network allows groups of up to 200,000 people and unlimited sharing.

Telegram critics claim that one can find groups selling weapons, drugs, Brazilian tax IDs (CPF), and distributing child pornography within a few hours. Glorification of Nazism, illegal trade, and misinformation about the Covid 19 vaccine (i.e., information other than the official Covid narrative) are also said to be widespread – more than 50,000 groups are said to have been created on the platform for these purposes.

However, no evidence has been provided so far. And since Telegram is not a Brazilian social network, it is unlikely that people in Brazil know what is happening in this app.

TELEGRAM

Telegram was in 2021 one of the most downloaded apps in the world, and its popularity is directly related to WhatsApp becoming more of a censorship platform. Significantly since the beginning of the Covid pandemic, thousands of users have been censored and blocked on WhatsApp for publishing alternative narratives.