Twitter censors a vice presidential candidate for the 2022 election for asking questions about polls in Brazil

Economist Marcos Cintra (União Brasil), former secretary of the Federal Revenue and vice-president of Senator Soraya Thronicke (União Brasil) for the Presidency of the Republic, had his Twitter profile censored this Sunday (Nov. 6).

The account was suspended one day after Cintra questioned the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) about counting the 2022 elections.

According to the Twitter report, the economist’s account was taken offline in Brazil “in response to a judicial demand”.

The Brazilian Justice has not disclosed the information about the process.

Poder360 tried to contact the TSE but had no answer as of the publication of this post.

“We also tried contacting the economist Marco Cintra, who did not respond”, wrote Poder 360 in its latest report.

On Saturday, Cintra wrote in his Twitter profile that he disagrees with the current president Jair Bolsonaro (PL, right) and considers him incapable of running the country.

However, the economist stated that his questions about the investigation “deserve answers”.

One of the arguments spread by the Bolsonaristas is that there was fraud in the ballot boxes that showed Jair Bolsonaro with 0 (zero) votes.

Cintra says he sees no explanation for this result in “hundreds of ballot boxes” that he would have checked.

“There are other hundreds, if not thousands of ballot boxes with equally improbable votes. Interestingly, there is no single ballot box in the country where Bolsonaro had 100% of the vote.”

“And if there is suspicion in a single ballot box, they fall on the entire system,” the vice presidential candidate for the 2022 election stated.

SUSPENSION OF ACCOUNTS

Since the elections, the TSE has been suspending social media accounts that support the truckers’ demonstrations or point out alleged fraud in the polls.

Almost all the Court’s decisions are secret.

On Friday (Nov. 4), the federal deputy elected with the most votes in the country, Nikolas Ferreira (PL-MG), also had his Twitter account suspended.

(Nikolas Ferreira)

Ferreira posted the live made by Argentine Journalist Fernando Cerimedo in which the journalist said that versions before the 2020 model of the electronic ballot box would not be auditable and counted fewer votes for President Bolsonaro.

Like Marcos Cintra’s profile, Ferreira’s page appears “withheld” by judicial decision.

“I transcribed what the Argentine said on Twitter, and that’s probably why they took down my account, with almost 2 million followers,” Nikolas said on Instagram. He defined the decision as “surreal” and said he had contacted lawyers to learn about the process.

The next day, on Saturday (Nov. 5), the TSE also asked for the suspension of Nikolas Ferreira’s Instagram profile.

“I had my social networks taken down for asking the Superior Electoral Court to analyze electoral complaints. At no time did I affirm anything; I only asked to look into it,” said Nikolas on his Telegram channel.

The decisions about the suspension of the accounts are under secrecy.

On social networks, politicians reacted to the suspension of Nikolas’ account.

Allies of the elected representative claimed that the case was censorship. The opposition praised the measure and considered it necessary.

On Wednesday (Nov. 2), judge Marco Antonio Martins Vargas, assistant to judge  Alexandre de Moraes, at the Superior Electoral Court, prohibited federal deputy Carla Zambelli (PL-SP) from creating new profiles on social networks until Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT left) is sworn in as president of the Republic, which must be done by Dec. 19.

The decision is confidential, but Poder360 had access to it.

The magistrate fixed a fine of R$ 100,000 per account detected on social networks.

Zambelli had her profiles taken down by Court decisions.

She created new accounts, which have also been taken down in secret TSE decisions.

With information from Poder360