The social media platform X (formerly Twitter) began publishing the “Alexandre Files” files over the weekend in response to Brazilian Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) Minister Alexandre de Moraes, who recently ordered the complete suspension of the platform in Brazil.
“Today, we begin shining a light on the abuses of Brazilian law committed by Alexandre de Moraes,” The Alexandre Files account said in an opening post on Saturday.
“We have been forced to share these orders because there is no transparency from the court, and the people who are being censored have no recourse to appeal,” the message continues. “Our own appeals have been ignored. And now the people of Brazil are denied access to X. Secret justice is no justice at all. Today, we say that must change.”
De Moraes, a self-styled “anti-fake news” crusader whose position is equivalent to that of a U.S. Supreme Court Justice ordered Brazilian Internet service providers to block access to X and threatened to impose hefty fines of roughly $9,000 to Brazilian citizens caught circumventing the censorship orders by means of tools such as a Virtual Private Network (VPN). The Brazilian top court also ordered to freeze the financial assets of Starlink, Musk’s satellite Internet service provider company.
STF’s order to block X in Brazil comes after the platform refused to censor accounts that the court claims are in violation of Brazilian law and shortly after X refused to comply with a court order demanding X appoint new legal representatives in the country. X closed its offices in Brazil in mid-August after de Moraes threatened to arrest its Brazilian legal staff if it did not comply with his censorship orders.
On Saturday, X’s Alexandre Files account posted a copy of an STF order signed by de Moraes dated August 8 in which the Brazilian judge gave X a two-hour deadline to block a group of seven accounts — including the account of current Brazilian Senator Marcos do Val — and block all monetization features on the accounts under penalty of a daily fine of 50,000 Brazilian reais (nearly $9,000).
The platform described the censorship order as a “direct violation of Brazilian law”:
On Sunday, the Alexandre Files account posted a series of messages in both English and Portuguese, stating that de Moraes elaborated on the reasons of his censorship orders through a new court decision dated August 18. X asserted, “In summary, he [de Moraes] explains that anyone who seeks to expose him or his accomplices – in any way – must be silenced in the name of ‘democracy.'”
The Alexandre Files account continued by focusing on de Moraes’s alleged charges against Sen. do Val that led to the court ordering the censoring of his X account — which the platform claims to be in violation of Articles 5 and 220 of the Brazilian Constitution.
On a second post, the Alexandre Files account stated that De Moraes contended that Sen. do Val “committed a crime” through a now-deleted post that denounced the chief of the Brazilian Federal Police, Fabio Alvarez Shor, for allegedly “acting as de Moraes’ henchman and violating Brazilians’ human rights on de Moraes’s orders.”
“Pointing out that De Moraes and the Brazilian police chief are engaging in human rights violations is now a crime in Brazil,” the platform asserted.
On a third follow-up post, the Alexandre Files account claims that de Moraes considers it a crime for Senator do Val to have reposted a video on his Instagram account originally published by Mariana Volf Pedro Eustaquio, a Brazilian teenager and the daughter of journalist Oswaldo Eustaquio Filho.
In the video, the Alexandre Files account claimed, “Children were filmed who would have been victims of Federal Police Delegate Fábio Alvarez Shor, for alleged abuses practiced when carrying out search and seizure warrants.”
“According to De Moraes, the now-deleted post below from Senator Do Val was also a crime because it threatened to expose criminal conduct by members of the Brazilian Federal Police acting under the direction of Alexandre de Moraes,” the account said.
The platform concluded its messages by publishing copies of the court order in Portuguese and its English translation.
The five members of Brazil’s Supreme Federal Tribunal began voting on Monday to decide whether or not to uphold de Moraes’s order to suspend X in Brazil. At press time, the motion to uphold the ban on X has reportedly received the favorable votes of de Moraes and STF Minister Flavio Dino. Local media reported that at least three votes are required to maintain the suspension.
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