Brazilians, led by former president Jair Bolsonaro, have gathered for massive protests against the dictatorial government’s crackdown on free speech.

Saturday, Sept. 7, was Brazilian Independence Day, but under the increasingly tyrannical government there, it seems Brazilians have little to celebrate. Tens of thousands of them did mark the day, however, with a protest supporting Bolsonaro’s denunciation of the ban on X, as Breitbart reported.

If Kamala Harris, the vice president of the Biden administration that built up the Censorship Industrial Complex, wins the 2024 election, then America could be looking at the same government shutdown of free speech as Brazil. That is a sobering prospect to keep in mind when you go to the polls.

Rallygoers described their event as an assembly in defense of freedom in the face of growing censorship and political repression under socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The Brazilian supreme court, the Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF), was the target of many of the protesters’ objections in light of a growing list of repressive actions against conservatives. Under STF Minister (justice) Alexandre de Moraes, the STF has declared war on “fake news,” executing police raids on lawmakers, YouTube personalities, and other outspoken conservatives.

When X, which had formerly complied with some censorship demands, finally said no, the Brazilian government went crazy with revenge.

De Moraes’s power trip included banning media discussion during the 2022 election of Lula’s corruption convictions, even though Lula was allowed to smear Bolsonaro as a “cannibal.” The latest major action, of course, is banning the use of X in the country and ordering fines for those using a VPN to get around the ban. “The Senate is expected to file articles of impeachment against de Moraes on Monday,” Breitbart noted.

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Unsurprisingly, Bolsonaro and his supporters have taken an outspoken stand against the Lula-de Moraes censorship regime.

Bolsonaro, in a Sept. 7 speech, called for government action to stop de Moraes’s overreach. “We must put a brake, through the constitutional devices, on those who leave, who break the limit of the four lines of our Constitution. And I hope that the Federal Senate will put a brake on Alexandre de Moraes, this dictator who harms Brazil more than Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva himself,” Bolsonaro said, in a translation of his remarks published in the original language on Estadão. He also referred to alleged fraud in Lula’s election victory.

X owner Elon Musk has weighed in on the controversy over the weekend, including replying “Thank you” to Mario Nawfal’s summary of a Washington Post article and reposting the tweet “ELON IS RIGHT... MORAES IS TURNING BRAZIL INTO CHINA!” 

Communist China has an aggressive censorship regime, and the Lula government has been friendly with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Ironically, Musk also works closely with the CCP because of his significant business investment in China.

Thank you https://t.co/p9ClPlFjoV

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 7, 2024

Musk also celebrated X still being the number one news app in Brazil days after its suspension there.

While X continues regularly to censor users, it has been more open to free speech overall than most mainstream platforms, leading to backlash from multiple governments, particularly in Brazil. Musk is not a “free speech absolutist” as he claims, but any amount of free speech is too much for radical leftists.