X Is Back in Brazil
WiredOCT 2024
Elon Musk, the self-proclaimed champion of free speech, and his social media platform X eventually caved in to Brazil's high court's demands and paid the fines, allowing its 20 million users to go online again. The First Amendment to the US Constitution is not universal. More and more governments are considering stricter regulations for online speech. Elon Musk just learned an important lesson in Brazil: if you want to do business, you must follow the regulations that exist in each country.
If the First Amendment protecting free speech is not universal, then Article 19 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights says: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom... to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media, regardless of frontiers." Brazil violates said article by attempting to suppress free speech and censor content on X. Modern liberal democracy is in trouble if Brazil sets the standard of free speech.
There is a 51% chance Elon Musk will be the richest person in the world on December 31, 2025, according to the Metaculus prediction community.