X ban: Musk could ‘stop every means of communication’ for Brazilian army
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00:00Well, for more, let's bring in Fabrice Epelboin. He's a tech and social media expert and a lecturer
00:05at Sciences Po University here in Paris. It's so good to have you with us on the program.
00:11Thanks for having me.
00:13So this feud has been ongoing for months now, and it's been a bit of a war of words.
00:18How did this all begin? And what are the two sides each arguing?
00:22Well, it all began when Elon Musk, right after having taken control of Twitter,
00:28released some internal communication within Twitter and gave them to Glyn Griswold,
00:33who is well known for being behind the Snowden affair. And those communications showed that
00:39during President Bolsonaro's legacy, the legal system in Brazil censored many, many Bolsonaro's
00:49militants and fans, and was doing some interference, clearly, in Brazil's democratic
00:55system. And it ended up by, well, as of today, censorship of Twitter in Brazil.
01:03Now, the X platform is said to be used by at least a tenth of the nation's 200 million
01:10inhabitants. That's an enormous amount of people. Do we have an idea of how long
01:15this ban is going to stay in place? And do you see the dispute being settled anytime soon?
01:20No, I don't think the dispute is going to be settled anytime soon.
01:23There is a similar dispute in the United States called the Twitter files that shows that during
01:31the Trump administration, the American administration was censoring Republicans
01:37and elected officials from the Republican Party, and many sensitive information that could have
01:45had a huge impact on Biden's election. And it has been confirmed that Mark Zuckerberg,
01:53to the American Senate two days ago. So this is a global censorship affair that had taken place
02:02before Musk took control over Twitter. And that is today revealed. And it's a problem. It's a
02:08major problem for democracies, whether it's Brazilian democracy or the American democracy,
02:13and probably European democracies. And it's become a big debate of freedom of speech,
02:19hasn't it? It's like misinformation versus censorship, because it calls into question,
02:23obviously, to what extent social media platforms should prioritize free speech and how to regulate
02:29misinformation. How does this recent incident highlight these concerns, in your opinion?
02:35Freedom of speech is an American concept. It has no place in European democracy.
02:42It's important, but it's not central. It's not the First Amendment.
02:46And the same situation is in Brazil. So this is clearly the American values being exported
02:55worldwide. It's a problem. It should be taken like this. It's the United States, the old way
03:02of seeing the United States, the First Amendment of the American Constitution, being exported
03:07worldwide, and been like that since the very beginning of Twitter, since the Green Revolution
03:13in Iran, since the Arab Spring. The Americans have been exporting the First Amendment worldwide
03:20using social network. It's still like that, and Musk is doing exactly the same thing.
03:27The value of the First Amendment is very different now. The Republicans are still
03:32very keen on preserving the First Amendment, but the Democrats are not that keen on preserving
03:37the First Amendment. So things are changing in the United States, and therefore they're
03:42changing worldwide. The finances of a second Musk business, the SpaceX Starlink satellite
03:49internet service, has also been frozen. Could you tell us a bit about this and what kind of
03:54implications it may have for Brazil? The Brazilian military rely on Starlink
04:03to communicate, just like Ukraine and just like many military worldwide. They need Starlink to
04:09establish communication. So Musk could theoretically stop every means of communication
04:17for the army in Brazil. Nobody knows if he's going to go that far, but he could play this game.
04:24All right. Fabrice Epelboin from Sciences Po,
04:27thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us and for your analysis.