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Musk Fired Most Of Twitter Brazil, Sparking Claims He Did Because Platform Undermined Bolsonaro

   DailyWire.com
Musk Fired Most Of Twitter Brazil, Sparking Claims He Did Because Platform Undermined Bolsonaro
(COMBO) This combination of pictures created on May 19, 2022 shows Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro (L) attends an act in defense of freedom of expression at Planalto Palace in Brasilia, on April 27, 2022, and CEO, and chief engineer at SpaceX, Elon Musk (R), arrives for the 2022 Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 2, 2022, in New York. - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is set to meet with billionaire Elon Musk on May 20, 2022, according to a government source. The meeting will be held in Sao Paulo, a source with the Brazilian president's office told AFP, without giving any details on what will be on the agenda. (Photo by EVARISTO SA and ANGELA WEISS / AFP) (Photo by EVARISTO SA,ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)

After Twitter CEO Elon Musk gutted much of Twitter’s staff in Brazil following the October elections, including all employees charged with moderating content for incitement of violence and misinformation, critics are claiming the bloodbath was over Twitter’s alleged role in undermining the conservative presidency of Jair Bolsonaro.

Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter on October 27; the run-off election for Brazil was held on October 30. In the initial election on October 2, neither Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro nor leftist Luiz Inacio da Silva, who served as president of Brazil from 2003-2010, could gain more than half of the valid votes, precipitating a run-off election, which ended with Lula receiving 50.90% of the votes to Bolsonaro’s 49.10%, the closest presidential election in Brazil’s history.

In early November, Twitter Brazil suspended the profiles of three right-wing politicians, prompting one Twitter user to ask Musk, “Hey @elonmusk, your company has been imposing a draconian ideological censorship of the Brazilian people’s right to free speech. We are at a critical moment in our history! Wtf is going on?? We thought you bought Twitter exactly for this reason! Rise and lift the censorship NOW!”

When Musk responded, “What censorship are you referring to?” Paulo Figueiredo Filho, the grandson of João Figueiredo, Brazil’s military president between 1979 and 1985, chimed in, “Of course, Twitter needs to obey Brazilian ‘court’ decisions. But the company has gone above and beyond, spontaneously imposing its own censorship, even stricter than that of our flawed courts. Your moderators are currently being more dictatorial than our own courts!”

“I will look into this,” Musk responded.

In early December, Avi Yemini of Rebel News tweeted at Musk, “Hey @elonmusk, can you find out what other elections were ‘handled’ by the former Twitter regime?  Thank you, The rest of the world.”

Musk replied, “I’ve seen a lot of concerning tweets about the recent Brazil election. If those tweets are accurate, it’s possible that Twitter personnel gave preference to left wing candidates.”

Musk followed with a mid-December tweet in which he stated, “Twitter may have people on the Brazil team that are strongly politically biased.” In May 2022, Musk visited Bolsonaro in Brazil, where they discussed projects that could protect the Amazon rainforest. At roughly the same time, Bolosonaro called the possible acquisition of Twitter by Musk “a breath of hope,” adding that he hoped Musk would show the rest of the world how Brazil protected the rainforest.

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