The Censorship War - Counteroffensive
TMTG and Rumble Take On a Notorious Brazilian Supreme Court Judge
The censorship war is one of the many battlegrounds in a much greater worldwide struggle: the fight between populism and globalism.
This war has raged violently for the last eight years, with wins and losses on both sides. The fight takes place both in the court of public opinion and in actual courtrooms across the world, and one country where the pro-censorship camp has seen unprecedented success is the nation of Brazil.
In Brazil, there is one Supreme Court judge in particular who has taken the censorship crusade to places only very few had previously dared, and currently enjoys the god-like power to determine what speech should and should not be allowed in that country. I’m, of course, referring to the Sith-like Alexandre de Moraes; a name that should be well-known at this point to anyone who cares about online censorship.
It might seem unimportant—a legal battle taking place in a foreign country—but this is how the censorship war is fought. There are various flashpoints around the world where stress-tests take place in an effort to see how far governments can go to censor dissent, places like Brazil, but also in the EU and the UK where legal frameworks like the Digital Services Act and the Online Safety Bill were implemented respectively.
NOTE - In case you care to read deeper, we covered some of these initiatives in greater detail back in Fall 2023 in an article called The Censorship Regime and the Road to 2024, and another on my personal SubStack called The War on Dissent, where I outlined some of the more shocking text in these bills.
This morning, not hours before I began writing this piece, Donald Trump’s media company TMTG, along with the American video platform Rumble, filed a joint lawsuit in a U.S. federal court against Moraes
In December 2023, Rumble departed Brazil as a result of what it deemed to be a plethora of unlawful "censorship orders" from Moraes, which sought to prohibit the participation of numerous creators and voices on the platform, including elected members of Congress. Moraes demanded that Rumble maintain the confidentiality of those orders, and threatened to terminate the company's operations in Brazil if it did not comply immediately. This action was in line with Moraes' decision to close X and to freeze Starlink’s bank accounts in Brazil in August of last year for failing to comply with orders to remove posts and prohibit users.
Here was Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski’s response:
Recently, the Brazilian courts demanded that we remove certain creators from Rumble. As part of our mission to restore a free and open internet, we have committed not to move the goalposts on our content policies. Users with unpopular views are free to access our platform on the same terms as our millions of users. Accordingly, we have decided to disable access toi Rumble for users in Brazil while we challenge the legalioty of the Brazilian court’s demands.
We are disappointed by the court decisions that have caused the Brazilian people to lose the ability to view a wide range of Rumble content. This action will not have a material effect on our business, but we hope the Brazilian courts reconsider their decisions so that we can restore service soon.
Glenn Greenwald, who’s reporting on this has been widely read by Brazilian audiences, broke it down on his show, System Update.
Rumble has since made its content available again in Brazil, following the recent withdrawal of an order blocking the Rumble account of the podcaster Monark (described by some as the Joe Rogan of Brazil) by Moraes. Almost immediately, Moraes sent orders to Rumble's lawyers in the country, instructing them to re-represent Rumble in order to receive his orders on behalf of the company.
The lawsuit is centered on Moraes' recent order, which instructed Rumble to completely close dos Santos' account and prohibit him from opening any new ones. In contrast to Moraes' previous mandates, this one does not merely compel the platform to deny access to Allan dos Santos' (a Brazilian conservative journalist) content in Brazil, it requires that Rumble ban dos Santos entirely from using or monetizing Rumble in any way, including outside of Brazil. Much like previous orders, this one gave Rumble an unreasonable two hours to comply.
Several offenses were claimed to have been committed by Dos Santos in Brazil in connection with the alleged disinformation he posted about the STF and the 2022 election. However, Santos fled to the U.S. in 2020, and the Biden administration rightly rejected Brazil's extradition request in April of last year on the basis that such actions are not and cannot be classified as offenses in the United States, as they are safeguarded by the right to free expression.
In general, countries refuse to extradite a foreign national if the acts that constitute the request are not offenses in the country in question, as stipulated in extradition treaties. Dos Santos' application for political asylum in the United States is currently pending, and he continues to be a legal resident of the country.
In a statement, Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski stated that the American rejection of the extradition request should have terminated Moraes' endeavor to restrict dos Santos' speech in the United States.
Instead, he stated,
“This case is a landmark battle for free speech in the digital age, In March 2024, the U.S. government formally rejected Brazil’s request to extradite the political dissident, ruling that the charges were nothing more than 'crimes of opinion' and violated fundamental free speech protections. This should have ended Moraes’ pursuit of the political dissident. Instead, he is now attempting to sidestep the U.S. legal system entirely—using secret censorship orders to pressure American companies into banning the political dissident worldwide.” — Chris Pavlovski (SOURCE)
E. Martin De Luca, a lawyer at the prominent law firm Boies Schiller, represented Rumble and asserted that Dos Santos, who is a legal resident of the United States, is entitled to compensation:
“Alexandre de Moraes is attempting to sidestep U.S. law entirely. Rumble and Trump Media’s lawsuit seeks the protection of a U.S. federal court to ensure that American businesses remain governed by American law, and that no foreign court can unilaterally dictate what speech is allowed on American platforms without proper authorization from the U.S. government.” — E. Martin De Luca, (SOURCE)
Trump 2.0 Steps Up
As evidenced by infamous boy-lizard Mark Zuckerberg’s recent reformation and kissing of the ring down at Mar-a-Lago, Tech companies are hoping to enlist Donald Trump’s aid in their fight against political censorship imposed by foreign governments and, potentially, future administrations.
Zuckerberg has claimed that senior officials from the Biden administration, including the White House, exerted pressure on Meta to remove certain content, particularly related to COVID-19, in 2021. In his August 26, 2024, letter to Rep. Jim Jordan, he wrote that these officials "repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire," and expressed frustration when Meta resisted.
Zuckerberg announced in January that Facebook’s “fact-checking program” would end; he asked the U.S. Government to protect tech companies against foreign governments who are “going after American companies and pushing to censor more.”
When asked about Meta’s announcement, Trump expressed approval for it. This protection is obviously not meant to be reserved for Meta alone, but all American tech companies who’ve brushed up against the international and domestic censorship industrial complex, namely Rumble and X, who’ve both been forced to contend with this monstrosity on multiple occasions.
Which brings us to the complaint filed today, which you can read in its entirety HERE.
Lawyers representing Trump's media company contend that any attempt to impede Rumble's operations in Brazil would also have a detrimental impact on Trump's company, Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. (Trump Media), and its Truth Social social media platform. The cloud services that Truth Social relies on are provided by Rumble. Trump Media contends that any interference with Rumble will also undermine Truth Social, providing the company with a legal foundation to contest Moraes' directives regarding Rumble.
This new case may have political repercussions that are just as important as, or even more so than its legal ones. Numerous influential members of Trump's new administration have long had grudges against Moraes and what they see to be Brazil's increasingly oppressive censorship system. Tensions between Moraes' now-powerful American opponents are expected to rise if his instructions are highlighted and portrayed as an assault on American sovereignty, American businesses, and the right to free expression of Americans.
Obviously, Elon Musk comes to mind, who is seen by many as one of the most powerful members of Trump’s team. Musk repeatedly employed harsh rhetorical attacks against Moraes throughout X's conflict with the STF, referring to him as “a tyrannical dictator masquerading as a judge,” and a “criminal.”
In August, Musk published an AI-generated photo of Moraes behind prison bars and wrote: “One day, @Alexandre, this picture of you in prison will be real. Mark my words.”
Trump's media company's choice to join Rumble's case against Moraes clearly indicates that the new administration intends to challenge a number of the censorship orders issued by the Brazilian judge. Up until now, the Trump administration has mostly refrained from employing the same punitive tariffs, demands, and penalties that are applied to other nations explicitly against Brazil. However, this action by Trump's media firm against Moraes has the potential to exacerbate these dormant tensions between the two governments, and it most likely will.
The lawsuit asks that Apple and Google be ordered to refrain from following any orders from Moraes to remove Truth Social or Rumble's platform from their stores, in addition to requesting a decision that Moraes' order breaches American law and sovereignty. In order to ascertain whether the corporations' allegations against Moraes are legitimate, it also asks for a jury trial.
This is obviously a developing story, but it bodes well for the pro-free speech camp. In the context of the greater information war and the fight against state-sponsored censorship, what Trump and Rumble are doing is the equivalent of a counter attack from a defensive position; A force absorbs an enemy assault from a fortified or prepared position, then launches an immediate strike as the enemy weakens or overextends.
It’s yet to be seen how Moraes and other censorship proponents—like the EU’s Thierry Breton—will respond to this lawsuit, but watching them attempt to fight back against Donald Trump, when he’s arguably at his strongest, will certainly be interesting.
UPDATE (2/25/2025) - a U.S. federal judge ruled that TMTG and Rumble are under no obligation to comply with orders from a Brazilian Supreme Court Justice attempting to force Rumble to take down a U.S.-based user's accounts.
"This is a major victory for free speech and free expression online,” said TMTG CEO Devin Nunes. "The ruling confirms that would-be dictators in any country can't force Trump Media or Rumble to censor their opponents. We congratulate our partner Rumble on its principled stand for freedom.” - Devin Nunes
Rumble released the following statement:
“Today, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida confirmed what we have argued from the very beginning: Justice Alexandre de Moraes’s censorship orders have no legal force in the United States. This ruling is a complete victory for free speech, digital sovereignty, and the right of American companies to operate without foreign judicial interference.
“The court explicitly ruled that Moraes’s directives were never properly served under U.S. or international law, stating that they were not delivered through the Hague Convention, the U.S.-Brazil Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), or any other valid legal mechanism. This means that Rumble and Trump Media are under no obligation to comply with these unlawful censorship demands, and no U.S. entity is required to enforce them.
“The court further made clear that if anyone attempts to enforce these illegal orders on U.S. soil, it stands ready to intervene to protect American companies and free speech. The ruling sends a strong message to foreign governments that they cannot bypass U.S. law to impose censorship on American platforms.
“This case was never just about Rumble or Trump Media—it was about stopping foreign judges from trying to silence speech in America. Today’s ruling confirms that Moraes’s authoritarian censorship campaign has no place in the United States, and his overreach will not stand.
“Rumble and Trump Media will continue to fight for free speech, and today’s ruling is a major victory in that battle.”
Beyond Brazil
Earlier, I mentioned that the situation with Moraes is just one of many flashpoints in the censorship war, so even if Trump and Rumble are successful here, there’s still many other fronts to consider.
The last four years saw the bolstering of the International Rules-Based Order’s capacity to enforce censorship, with the stated goal of combating populist opposition across the globe and, god forbid, to prevent the return of Donald Trump to Oval Office.
In light of recent events, namely the lawsuit mentioned above, I think it’s worth evaluating the current state of the information-war game board, particularly when it comes to these other nations ability to use censorship as a weapon to harm U.S. tech platforms like X, Truth Social and Rumble.
First, our neighbors up in Canada are currently enjoying some online repression of their own.
Bill C-11, officially the Online Streaming Act, amends Canada’s Broadcasting Act to bring online streaming platforms (e.g., Netflix, YouTube, Spotify) under the regulatory purview of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). This bill was introduced in 2022 by the Liberal government under Justin Trudeau, and is currently enacted.
Critics argue that Bill C-11 grants excessive regulatory power to the CRTC, allowing it to dictate what content is prioritized online. The requirement for streaming platforms and social media services to promote "Canadian content" (or CanCon, not to be confused with CannCon lol) is seen as a form of government overreach that could limit user choice and suppress diverse voices. C-11’s vague scope and regulatory powers could enable government overreach into online content, stifling free expression by prioritizing certain voices (once again, the amorphous “CanCon”) over others.
Some of the primary criticisms with C-11 deal with unclear definitions (e.g., “Canadian content,” “online undertaking”) and the CRTC’s broad discretion invite inconsistent or excessive regulation, creating uncertainty for platforms and creators. The CRTC’s ongoing process to define CanCon (consultations began May 2023, draft due mid-2025) leaves platforms guessing—e.g., must a creator be Canadian-born, or is filming in Canada enough? This vagueness can obviously be weaponized.
Basically, C-11 is a regulatory mess that was, behind so much window dressing and jargon, clearly designed as a pretense for state-sponsored censorship.
A similar legal framework was initiated in the UK called the Online Safety Bill (OSB). The Online Safety Bill became the Online Safety Act (OSA) 2023 after receiving Royal Assent on October 26, 2023, meaning it’s no longer a bill, but an operational statute. Much like C-11, The OSA has drawn significant flak from tech firms, privacy advocates, free speech groups, and political figures.
There is a lot of dull jargon in this bill, as is the case with all extremely consequential bills, but peppered throughout are rather vague, yet alarming clauses. For example, Section 10 in the Bill’s original text details the crimes of transmitting “harmful, false and threatening communications,” and then refuses to clearly define what will be considered “harmful” and what the criteria will be to determine whether or not something is “false”.
Additionally, the bill makes it a crime to “send a message” containing false information in clause 156.
Then, in the next breath, grants immunity to every newspaper, television channel and streaming service in clause 157.
I read through the original Bill’s text back in 2023, and found several glaring attempts to not only bolster the UK’s ability to censor, but also its mass surveillance capability.
The Act’s provision (Clause 122) allowing Ofcom (Office of Communications) to mandate scanning for child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA) or terrorism content, even on encrypted platforms, is seen as undermining end-to-end encryption (E2EE) and further enabling mass surveillance.
Much like the Patriot Act, this OSB plays upon the psychology of the undiscerning by using evocative framing and claiming to combat something that is far removed from how the bill will be used. Obviously citing things like “terrorism” and “child sexual exploitation” is merely a pretense used to justify what boils down to the UK Government spying on its own citizen’s private communications.
As we mentioned earlier, the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) was yet another legal framework, which is now enacted and fully applicable since February 17, 2024, with enforcement ramping up in 2025. It applies to all online platforms in the EU, with stricter rules for Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) like X, which has over 45 million monthly EU users.
Elon Musk is no stranger to the DSA, as he has been one of the primary targets of the law, and X was the first VLOP to undergo a formal investigation.
What all of these legal frameworks have in common is that they were passed despite widespread opposition, reflecting a top-down imposition rather than democratic consensus, undermining their legitimacy.
The last eight years have laid bare a global tug-of-war over speech, with Brazil’s Moraes, the EU’s DSA, Canada’s C-11, and the UK’s OSA marking battlegrounds where freedom’s been battered—but not yet broken.
Trump’s alliance with Rumble and TMTG, hurling a legal Molotov at Moraes, signals a shift: America’s tech renegades are striking back, not just defending.
This isn’t the endgame—censorship’s hydra has too many heads—but it’s a jolt of life in a fight that’s been bleeding out.
As these flashpoints flare, from Brasilia to Brussels, the question looms: can a resurgent push for free expression outpace the machinery of control?
With Trump 2.0 flexing its muscle, 2025 might just be when the tide starts to turn—or when the real war begins.
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Bolsonaro won but Lula stole the election and imprisoned Bolsonaro. Otherwise this wouldn't be happening. Let's not forget the videos of mass protests.
Relations with Brazil would have been soooo much better had the communists/CIA/cabal not stripped Bolsonero of his rightful place as leader.