New Report Reveals the Extent of the Brazilian Censorship Regime's Threat to American Free Speech

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, the House Judiciary Committee released an interim staff report titled "The Attack on Free Speech Abroad: The Case of Brazil Part III." The report details new evidence discovered by the Committee proving that Brazil's censorship regime targets speech within the United States and forces American social media companies to decide between complying with its censorship demands or face lawfare and cease operations in the country. In 2024, the Committee issued reports detailing how Brazilian authorities ordered American social media companies Xand Rumbleto suspend or remove popular accounts and other content that expresses views disfavored by the Brazilian government-including speech by American users.

New nonpublic documents obtained by the Committee show that Brazil's censorship regime, led by Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, regularly targets speech within the United States by:

• Issuing global removal orders;
• Partnering with censors around the world; and
• Removing legal liability protections for social media platforms.

Justice Moraes and other judicial officials' censorship orders have repeatedly targeted U.S.-based speech, including the speech of Brazilian journalists and political commentators who live in the United States. Censorship requests have even been sent to platforms like X to remove posts praising President Donald Trump and criticizing former President Joe Biden.

When platforms like X and Rumble refused to fully comply with censorship demands, Justice Moraes fined them and ordered them to cease operating in Brazil. If a Brazilian judge can order American companies to censor the speech of U.S. residents, American free speech is in jeopardy.

The new documents show that Brazil is not only censoring political speech and attacking platforms, but it is also coordinating its censorship efforts with other, similar foreign censorship regimes and Stanford University. Through international coordination forums, coordinated censorship efforts are threatening American free speech rights. Rather than stopping its censorship efforts after the Committee exposed Stanford's central role in laundering U.S. government censorship requests to social media companies in an attempt to influence the 2020 U.S. elections, Stanford has shifted from enabling domestic censorship to aiding and abetting foreign censors.

These attacks on free speech are a clear and growing threat to Americans' constitutional rights. The Committee will continue to conduct oversight and develop legislative remedies to protect the First Amendment from foreign censorship threats.

Read the full interim staff report here.