Stock photo from the headquarters of the Supreme Court of Brazil. Source: STF Brasil
On Friday, March 7, Brazil’s Supreme Court First Panel reached a majority decision, with Justices Flávio Dino and Cristiano Zanin voting to uphold Justice Alexandre de Moraes’ February 21 order to suspend the Canadian social media platform Rumble in Brazil until it agrees to comply with local laws.
As outlined in the original order, Rumble’s suspension will be lifted immediately upon compliance with Brazilian law, which requires social media companies operating in the country to appoint a legal representative—a condition similar to the one X (formerly Twitter) agreed to last September to resume service in Brazil. Additionally, Rumble was ordered to deplatform fugitive Alan dos Santos and freeze all assets he has earned through economic activities on the platform.
Dos Santos, a once-popular alt-right YouTuber aligned with the Bolsonarista movement, has been branded as a victim of an anti-free speech “witch hunt” by far-right influencers in the United States. In 2021, he fled Brazil after being charged with forming a digital militia to spread disinformation aimed at undermining public trust in the electronic voting system, as part of the Bolsonaro family’s preemptive “stop the steal” campaign. Later, he was indicted by federal police for criminal conspiracy related to violent threats against federal agents. The Brazilian government has requested his extradition from the U.S., but due to differences in laws and penalties between the two countries, the request has been denied.
Rumble voluntarily withdrew from Brazil in December 2023 after refusing to comply with Brazilian legislation, in what many viewed as an imperialist attempt to impose U.S.-style free speech laws on a sovereign nation with its own Constitution. Brazil’s legal traditions regarding speech rights are more aligned with countries like Germany and France than the U.S., meaning that advocating for Nazism, pedophilia, or school shootings, for example, is not considered protected speech.
On February 8, after 14 months of voluntary exile, Rumble announced its return to Brazil. On February 19, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes—a conservative appointed by Bolsonaro supporter and former interim president Michel Temer—gave Rumble a 48-hour deadline to comply with Brazilian law by designating a legal representative in the country. The following day, Rumble and Truth Social filed a frivolous lawsuit against Moraes in a Florida court district, which has no jurisdiction over Brazilian matters, seemingly for publicity purposes. On February 21, Moraes issued an executive order to Brazil’s telecommunications regulatory agency, ANATEL, to block Rumble until it complied with the law.
Brazil’s Supreme Court consists of 11 justices divided into two panels of five justices each, with the Chief Justice stepping in to break ties. With three justices in the First Panel having already voted to uphold Moraes’ order—and voting still ongoing—Rumble’s suspension is effectively guaranteed. According to Brazilian legal procedures, there are only very limited circumstances under which this case could be brought to a full Supreme Court vote. Even so, the laws in this case are clear, and if the X case is any indication, only two justices—both far-right activist judges appointed by Jair Bolsonaro—are likely to vote in Rumble’s favor.
An excerpt from Justice Moraes’ opinion highlights the broader struggle behind the temporary suspension of X last year, as well as the Rumble ban—a battle of national sovereignty against an imperialist, techno-feudalist class that believes it can bypass local laws to install sycophantic vassals like Javier Milei in any nation it chooses:
“Rumble’s attempt to place itself outside the bounds of Brazilian law demonstrates its clear intent to maintain and allow the instrumentalization of social networks, with the massive dissemination of misinformation and the potential for harmful and unlawful use of technology and artificial intelligence, thereby endangering democracy. This has already been attempted in Brazil and in various countries around the world through the rise of extremist digital populism.”
According to the Brazilian Attorney General’s February 18, 2024 indictment of Jair Bolsonaro and 32 cronies for attempting to orchestrate a military coup, their efforts began with promoting an “authoritarian” narrative about the Supreme Court. This narrative emerged in 2019, when the Court authorized an investigation into far-right actors for making death threats against its justices. By 2021, this narrative, combined with preemptive attacks on the electronic voting system (which elected Bolsonaro himself in 2018) had become a pillar of a coup-promoting strategy. This nearly led to a return to military rule in January 2023, when Bolsonaro-aligned Federal District military police opened the doors of government buildings and allowed an angry mob to storm the Supreme Court.
In the years since attacks on the Supreme Court began, thanks in part to Eduardo Bolsonaro’s role as South America’s representative at CPAC, right-wing actors such as Michael Shellenberger, Elon Musk, and Republican lawmakers like Marjorie Taylor Greene have amplified this narrative. Beyond the far right, former Silicon Valley reporter Jack Nicas has written a series of articles in The New York Times using U.S. legal standards to criticize rulings by Brazil’s Supreme Court. These articles began one week before the 2022 Brazilian presidential elections—an act that would have violated Brazil’s election laws if published domestically.
With Jair Bolsonaro indicted and facing a minimum prison sentence of 11 years, it is almost certain that Alexandre de Moraes will be used as a scapegoat in attempts to depose Lula during the 2026 elections. This strategy may also be exploited by techno-feudalist oligarchs to orchestrate a “get out of jail free” campaign for Bolsonaro. The irony, however, is that removing Moraes would not affect the ruling against Rumble or the trial of Bolsonaro and his military allies, as the guaranteed majority in the Supreme Court’s First Panel demonstrates. Only two of the Court’s 11 justices were appointed by Bolsonaro, meaning the legal outcomes are unlikely to change.
The only way out for Bolsonaro and his allies is to dismantle the Supreme Court altogether—a key objective of the failed 2022-2023 military coup attempt. This brings them back to where they started, but this time, they lack the power of the federal government to promote their false narratives. Only time will tell if figures like Donald Trump and Silicon Valley’s techno-fascists can fill that void. The key to preventing this lies in ensuring that imperialist social media platforms do not violate Brazilian laws. In this sense, the suspension of Rumble represents a significant step forward for national sovereignty.
Brian Mier is a journalist and geographer, former co-editor of Brasilwire and correspondent for teleSUR English’s news program, From the South. Originally hailing from Chicago, he has lived in Brazil for 30 years.
