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Carr Sides With Musk Against Brazil X Ban

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr supported SpaceX CEO Elon Musk in online posts and remarks over the weekend, condemning the actions of a Brazilian judge against Musk’s X social media platform as part of a global movement toward censorship. Brazilian Supreme…

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Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes issued an order banning X Friday. “de Moreas’ own words make clear that he is attempting to strike a broader blow against free speech and in favor of authoritarian controls,” Carr wrote in a long X post on de Moraes’ opinion. “With X refusing to cave to secret and unlawful demands, you’re now seeing public and unlawful demands instead,” Carr wrote. He also reposted Musk's comments, condemning de Moraes as a dictator during an audio-only X Spaces stream. “This is part of a global movement where people believe that they can get away with what would otherwise be characterized as naked authoritarian actions, provided that they use the rubric of doing this to, quote, preserve democracy or save democracy,” Carr said. “If you are going particularly after the right type of political enemies, which happen right now, for whatever reason, to be sort of the populist right,” then “there's been a level of acceptance,” said Carr. “What is happening in Brazil that should be immediately and clearly rejected by the right, the left and the center, because once we erode these ideas of free speech and individual liberty every single one of us end up being harmed at the end of the day.” Carr has increasingly engaged with Musk on X (see 2408190040) in recent weeks (see 2408270048), visited SpaceX in August and posted a picture of himself and Musk together last week.