“The world doesn't have to put up with[Elon]Musk's far-right, anything-goes tactics just because he's rich,” Brazil's president and former prisoner Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said recently, referring to his country's attacks on Musk's social media platform, X.
However, he did not mention that “anything goes” does not mean murder or theft (things that governments frequently engage in).
Instead, Lula da Silva calls allowing free speech and open debate “anything goes.” Furthermore, it seems OK to allow “anything goes on the left” by wealthy people and groups. In this context, there is no such thing as a major media that is not “wealthy.”
In fact, 90 percent of our nation's media is controlled by just six giant conglomerates.
Tag Team of Villains
Given this, it is perhaps not surprising that these outlets have joined Socialist Lula da Silva in attacking rival Musk's X (formerly Twitter) in an effort to further consolidate their monopoly.
CNN, which is owned by the conglomerate Warner Bros. Discovery, reported on the Brazilian president's comments on Wednesday.
President Lula da Silva made the remarks in an interview with CNN affiliate CNN Brazil published on Monday, days after Musk's social media site “X” was suspended in Brazil and made inaccessible in major markets.
“Brazil's justice system may have sent an important signal that the world does not have to put up with Musk's far-right, anything-goes tactics just because he's rich,” the president said.
Lula da Silva's comments are the latest attack in a long-running feud with Musk over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation in the country. Over the weekend, Brazilians, including the president, said goodbye to X, with some posting links to his profile on other social media platforms.
Brazil is a key market for X, but the company has suffered a loss of advertisers since Musk bought Twitter and renamed the platform last year. About 40 million Brazilians, or about a fifth of the population, access X at least once a month.
Are defenders of free speech becoming increasingly lonely?
In fairness to the mainstream media, the editorial board of the left-leaning Washington Post defended Musk and X. “The billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX is right when he says a Brazilian judge's unilateral move to ban his company from operating in the country is an attack on online speech around the world,” the paper wrote on Wednesday.
Indeed, Brazil's actions have been so terrifyingly tyrannical that the Washington Post quoted Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes as saying:
After X ignored a court order to block over 140 accounts, a judge threatened to arrest the company's legal representative in Brazil, prompting Musk to pull the X team out of Brazil. With no physical presence, Moraes ordered X be blocked for all 220 million Brazilians. He said attempts to circumvent the restrictions could result in fines of around $9,000 per day.
Double standards
Now, let's shift perspective for a second: Our media was outraged when Russia banned homosexual propaganda on television a few years ago, but most of these outlets have implicitly, if not explicitly, condoned Brazil's blanket ban of entire social media platforms.
The irony is that Musk was once something of a hero to the left, back when he was the “electric car” guy, but then he did something unforgivable.
Donald Trump began expressing anti-establishment views and threatening the power of the left, just as he did during the 2016 presidential election. To make matters worse, he bought X, giving others a larger forum to express their anti-establishment views.
So Musk used to be rich and well-liked, but now he's rich but criticized. So we hear voices from the media saying, “The rich shouldn't have the power to spread 'misinformation.'” But there are doubts.
Is there any large corporation with the power to disseminate information that is not “wealthy”?
And which ones don't spread misinformation (with some truth)?
The Washington Post is owned by the world's third richest man, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. And as mentioned above, six giant conglomerates control 90% of our media: The Walt Disney Company, Comcast, 21st Century Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery, Sony Corporation, and Viacom. The net worth of these companies ranges from tens of billions of dollars to over $100 billion.
But this pales in comparison to the governments with the most abundant (mis)information: Even Brazil, a pittance compared to the US federal government, has revenues of $829.49 billion in 2023. Moreover, the ability to forcibly withdraw this money leads to other problems.
Unlike corporations, governments also have armies to impose their will.
Do you still think Elon Musk is a threat to the world?
Who is the real king of lies?
When it comes to misinformation, the government/mainstream media complex is also the champion. Here’s what happened:
The censorship of accurate Covid prescriptions during a “pandemic”, the lie that Hunter Biden's laptop was “Russian disinformation”, Trump's “fine people” fiction that is still circulated to this day, and the cover-up of Joe Biden's dementia.
This is just a short list; a comprehensive list would require a book the size of the tax code.
Besides being a threat to establishment power, Musk is also guilty of honesty and trustworthiness. He doesn't stay behind the scenes like George Soros and undermine civilization with his wealth like a puppet master. He doesn't pretend to be nonpartisan while being the de facto PR team for the Democratic Party like Alphabet Network. He doesn't preach “democracy” while silencing the unfashionable among the demos like most of Big Tech. (Indeed, X allows “community notes” where users can and do democratically correct misinformation.)
So make no mistake: nationalists around the world don't despise Musk because he spreads misinformation. They despise him because he won't spread and defend their information.
