Why the Rumble Suit Against a Brazilian Justice is Not About Free Speech

Laís Martins, a Brazilian investigative journalist based in São Paulo, is a Tech Policy Press fellow.

Last week, in a rare—if not unprecedented—move, a Canada and US-based social media platform decided to sue a Supreme Court Justice in Brazil. With the help of Trump Media Group, the parent company of Truth Social (potentially President Donald Trump’s greatest source of wealth, according to the New York Times), Rumble, an online video platform popular among conservative and far-right users, filed a lawsuit against Brazilian Justice Alexandre De Moraes, accusing him of censorship and asking his orders to be deemed illegal in the United States.

Moving past the glaring conflict of interest in using a company owned and controlled by the President of the United States to pursue a legal attack on a foreign authority, the suit's purpose is not to defend free speech, contrary to what far-right voices in Brazil and the US suggest. Instead, it appears to be about waging war against a court that has shown that protecting democracy comes above any other right.

The discussions so far have largely overlooked the circumstances at the genesis of De Moraes’ decision but have also failed to look at what comes ahead for Brazilian politics. The Rumble suit is not separate from a context of unyielding attacks by the far-right against the Supreme Court as it prepares to judge the case of former president Jair Bolsonaro. In mid-February, Bolsonaro was formally accused of plotting a coup to remain in power. The court is expected to decide the case in 2025 to avoid having it spill over into 2026, when Brazil will hold presidential elections.

When put into the context of attacks against democracy and democratic institutions by Bolsonaro and his far-right allies, De Moraes’ decision reveals the lengths one needs to go to protect democracy from being stolen.

In early February, De Moraes ordered Rumble to block the channel and to impede the creation of a new account belonging to Allan dos Santos, a prominent right-wing blogger who has been accused of plotting against democracy and disseminating fake news. Since 2020, Dos Santos has lived in the US and there is a request to extradite him, as he is currently considered a fugitive of justice. In addition, a court ordered that social media platforms should block any accounts associated with Dos Santos back in 2021. Since then, he has allegedly created 39 new accounts, challenging both court orders and platforms’ ability to enforce them.

Based on De Moraes’ Rumble order, Rumble and Trump Media Group filed suit. A few days later, after Rumble failed to meet De Moraes's 48-hour deadline for the company to appoint a legal representative in Brazil, the Justice decided to block access to the social media platform in Brazil. This order was followed by Brazil’s main telecom providers, including Starlink.

A few days later, Rumble and Trump Media Group doubled down and filed an emergency motion against De Moraes in a US court in order to avoid complying with his requests, alleging they violated the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

While the case is still ongoing, it feels like déjà vu. De Moraes is the same justice who, in August 2024, ordered the suspension of X (formerly Twitter) in Brazil after it failed to appoint a legal representative in Brazil before a court-mandated deadline. The other justices unanimously upheld the ban in early September.

The lack of a legal representative, in defiance of what is established by Brazilian legislation, was the last straw in a succession of failures to comply with court orders, including requests to block profiles belonging to people being investigated by the Supreme Court, including Allan dos Santos.

After nearly 40 days offline, access to X was reinstated in early October after Musk conceded to De Moraes’ request to block nine profiles, appointed a legal representative, and paid US$4.9 million in fines.

Why is Rumble going so far to protect Dos Santos?

Dos Santos is an emblematic figure in the Brazilian Supreme Court’s crackdown against social media platforms and the far-right. He is implicated in two ongoing probes in the Supreme Court: the fake news probe and the digital militias probe, both sealed investigations of which De Moraes is the rapporteur. In 2021, the court put him under temporary arrest, accusing him of participating in an organized group that attempted to overthrow democracy, including via social media.

In 2024, during the last year of the Biden administration, the US denied Brazil’s request to extradite Dos Santos over what they called an ‘opinion crime,’ which would be protected by the right to freedom of speech. He could, however, still be extradited for other crimes he is currently being investigated for.

But ever since Trump took office, Dos Santos has gained new relevance as what could be, perhaps, the strongest connecting thread between the Brazilian far-right, the United States’ far-right, and the now-aligned Silicon Valley leaders. They now share a common enemy: the Brazilian Supreme Court and, more prominently, Justice De Moraes.

Yasmin Curzi de Mendonça, a researcher at the Karsh Institute of Democracy at the University of Virginia, views this attack on the Brazilian Judiciary as a way to avenge Musk for the X ban last year but also as a “clear interest in feeding far-right groups ahead of the 2026 [presidential] elections.”

De Mendonça recalls, however, that the Brazilian understanding of freedom of speech diverges from that of the United States. “The United States has an exceptional view of freedom of speech. The First Amendment protects all speech from government interference.”

Brazil, on the other hand, has taken an international law approach, seen in other major democracies, where freedom of speech is “a preferential right, that is, any restriction must be proportionate,” said De Mendonça. “The United States is an exception, and today they resemble authoritarian regimes by not allowing certain topics to even be researched in universities without retaliation,” she added.

In 2023, the Supreme Court published a document in which it states that freedom of speech “exists for manifesting contrary, humorous, satirical and even wrong opinions, but not for criminal, hateful opinions or that attempt against democracy and the democratic rule of law.”

The OAS rapporteur under pressure

Over the past few years, like never before, the Supreme Court in Brazil has had the difficult and delicate task of exercising these limits in court rulings and orders. Although there is space for questioning De Moraes’ rationale for some of his orders, the facts suggest Brazil's path in attempting to hold those who attacked democracy might have been more effective than in the US.

Trump has been elected president once again, while Bolsonaro has been ruled ineligible by courts and should soon be tried for plotting a coup. More than 370 people have been arrested, of which 70 have been convicted, for storming government buildings in Brasília on January 8th, 2023. In total, 898 people have been held responsible for anti-democratic acts. In contrast, on his first day in office, Trump granted clemency to nearly all 1,600 people charged in the January 6th, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

“The narrative of persecution has been crucial for bolsonarism in the country, inflamed during the visit of the OAS special rapporteur on freedom of expression to the country,” said De Mendonça. In early February, Pedro Vaca, the special rapporteur for Freedom of Expression at the Organization of the American States, visited Brazil to elaborate a report on the state of free speech in the country.

As part of his visit, Vaca met with Supreme Court Justices, including De Moraes, civil society organizations, activists, and opposition members of Congress, many of whom were aligned with Bolsonaro. In the lead-up to Vaca’s visit, the Brazilian far-right organized with US Congress members to pressure the rapporteur, according to journalist Jamil Chade.

While Vaca was in Brazil, federal deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro, one of the former president’s sons, traveled to Washington DC to meet with representatives allied to Trump and speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). US representatives then allegedly addressed a letter to the OAS pressuring the rapporteur to take action in regards to the censorship against bolsonaristas. According to Chade, they threatened that Trump would cut off the OAS money if they did not take action.

A draft version of the OAS report is set to be published in early March, but the final version will be reviewed by the commission and subject to a vote. For now, the Brazilian government and civil society's assessment is of relief. But the bolsonarista campaign to pressure the OAS has been relentless and could further inflame suits in the US against the court.