Left-wing Hollywood actor Mark Ruffalo has sided with Brazilian president Lula da Silva’s judiciary for blocking Elon Musk’s social media platform X, making it largely inaccessible on both the web and through its mobile app.
X missed a deadline imposed by Brazilian Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) Minister Alexandre de Moraes to name a legal representative in Brazil, triggering the nationwide suspension.
De Moraes, the equivalent of what in the United States would be a Supreme Court justice, subpoenaed X and its owner, Elon Musk, in a post made on the site itself on Wednesday night — a move the STF itself reportedly described as “unprecedented,” as it marks the first time the Brazilian top court has subpoenaed someone on social media.
It marks an escalation in the months-long feud between Musk and radical leftist de Moraes over free speech and alleged misinformation, as Breitbart News reported.
The court order, which de Moraes digitally signed, came one week after X announced the closure of its office in Brazil. The decision, according to X’s global government affairs team, was in response to de Moraes allegedly threatening to arrest the platform’s Brazilian legal team if it did not comply with his censorship orders, as noted by Breitbart’s Christian K. Caruzo.
“Avengers” star Ruffalo has now supported the ban and taken Musk to task for refusing to cooperate with Brazil’s authorities. He wrote on X:
“@elonmusk showed his total disrespect for Brazilian sovereignty and, in particular, for the judiciary, setting himself up as a true supranational entity and immune to the laws of each country,” de Moraes wrote.Because he is a weird and entitled billionaire tech bro. Tax him
For his part, Elon Musk was quick to respond on his platform, simply calling his Hollywood foe “an idiot.”
Other users of X also added their response to that of Musk, accusing Ruffalo of siding with a foreign authoritarian government over free speech.
Others pointed out the irony of Ruffalo criticizing free speech while using the X platform to express his views.
The row began in April, with the judge ordering the suspension of dozens of X accounts for allegedly spreading disinformation.
Reacting to the decision, Musk said at the time: “Free speech is the bedrock of democracy and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes.”
The social media network is said to be used by at least a 10th of the nation’s 200 million inhabitants.
By Saturday morning some users had reported access to the platform was no longer possible, the BBC reports.
The head of Brazil’s telecommunications agency, which has been tasked with suspending the platform, said he is “proceeding with the compliance” to do so, according to Reuters news agency.
Justice Moraes has also given companies such as Apple and Google a five-day deadline to remove X from its application stores and block its use on iOS and Android systems.
Meanwhile, the bank accounts of Musk’s satellite internet firm Starlink have been frozen in Brazil following an earlier order by the country’s Supreme Court.
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