Reps. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) introduced a bill on Tuesday to prevent American support of, or taxpayers’ dollars from funding, the censorship of free speech abroad – a response to the Brazilian Supreme Court’s heavy-handed efforts to censor or shut down American social media outlets.
Brazilian Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) Minister Alexandre de Moraes, the equivalent of an American Supreme Court justice, launched a sprawling nationwide campaign against “fake news” and alleged “misinformation” in 2019 that has disproportionately targeted conservative and right-wing voices. Moraes played a major role in the 2022 presidential election through his dual role as the then-head of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), outlawing any media mentions of current president Lula da Silva’s status as a convicted felon on corruption charges, but taking no action against the Lula campaign’s spurious attempts to brand rival and former President Jair Bolsonaro a “cannibal.”
The “fake news” campaign forced the American website Rumble to shut down operations in Brazil, as it refused to comply with pervasive and incessant demands from de Moraes to censor individuals producing content on the site. In the past two months, de Moraes has moved to targeting the microblogging site Twitter (sometimes referred to as “X”), blocking it from the country until owner Elon Musk complied with a hefty list of censorship demands. Musk initially refused to shut down the accounts and posts in question, calling de Moraes a “dictator” and comparing him to the Harry Potter villain Voldemort, but Twitter abruptly announced in late September that it would, in fact, comply with the censorship demands to restore its access to the Brazilian markets.
For his troubles, de Moraes announced this weekend that, to return to Brazil, Twitter would have to pay a $1.84 million fine for the days that it did not comply with his censorship demands. Twitter’s official legal representative in Brazil, Rachel de Oliveira Villa, was personally fined 300,000 Brazilian reais (roughly $55,284) in response to Twitter’s initial refusal to censor.
Reps. Smith, Jordan, and Salazar drafted their bill, the No Funding or Enforcement of Censorship Abroad Act, in response to widespread reports that American government-funded NGOs and other entities have aided de Moraes’ quest to silence anti-socialist voices. The current iteration of the bill notes in its text that de Moraes “received and implemented recommendations on censoring content” from NGOs funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. State Department. To prevent such funding from being transferred in this way in the future, the bill bans funding for “any foreign entity” tied to censorship.
“No assistance may be furnished under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2151 et seq.), for the benefit of any foreign entity if the Secretary of State has credible information,” the bill reads, “that such foreign entity has engaged in, facilitated, or promoted, or will imminently engage in, facilitate, or promote censorship of lawful speech online.”
The bill also bans federal law enforcement from offering foreign police “assistance or cooperation … if the Attorney General has credible information that such a request will cause, facilitate, or promote censorship of protected speech online.”
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In a statement on Tuesday, Rep. Smith accused outgoing President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris of actively supporting censorship campaigns such as the one in Brazil.
“The Biden-Harris Administration has weaponized U.S. foreign assistance programs and other means to promote censorship in Brazil and crack down on free speech that would be protected under our U.S. Constitution here at home,” Rep. Smith said.
“It is unconscionable that the United States is using taxpayer dollars to promote this type of censorship which completely contradicts our entire American constitutional tradition,” he added.
“This bill is critical in stopping foreign government censors from using the DOJ or the FBI to silence disfavored views,” Rep. Jordan, explaining his sponsorship of the bill, said in a statement.
Similarly, Rep. Salazar stated, “The United States must defend Elon Musk from the attacks of Alexandre de Moraes and the other forces of socialism in Brazil.”
The lawmakers highlighted the publication of a report by the investigative organization Civilization Works that found evidence that de Moraes and the STF and TSE “have been heavily influenced by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) funded by the U.S. government.”
“What’s more, multiple U.S. agencies and officials have played a role in encouraging and facilitating censorship in Brazil,” the organization revealed. “Brazil’s Censorship Industrial Complex – a large network of NGOs, fact-checkers, and state actors – appears to often take cues, training, and financial support from its U.S. counterpart.”
“In backing Brazilian censorship, the U.S. federal government and its subsidiaries have engaged in inappropriate foreign interventions, specifically targeting elections and public policy,” the study concluded.