Supreme Court Controversy in Brazil

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – A recent poll reveals that Brazilian citizens are divided regarding Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes’ order to suspend social media platform X in the country.

Public Opinion

A slight majority of respondents expressed disagreement with the judge’s decision, with 50.9% against and 48.1% in favor. Notably, 0.9% were undecided.

In the ongoing feud between Moraes and X owner Elon Musk, nearly 49.7% of those surveyed sided with the judge, while 43.9% backed Musk, and 5.4% remained neutral.

Compliance and Fines

Regarding the court’s orders, 48.9% believed X should comply by removing specific content and banning implicated users. Conversely, only 37.6% supported Musk’s stance against such compliance. Additionally, a significant 64.5% found Moraes’ imposed fine of 50,000 reais ($8,860) on VPN users to be abusive.

Financial Account Blocking

When asked about the decision to block financial accounts related to Starlink, 55.1% deemed it abusive, while 44% justified it.

Market Impact

Brazil ranks as X’s sixth-largest market globally, with approximately 21.5 million users. The suspension of the platform took effect in early hours of Saturday.

The poll, conducted on September 3-4 with 1,617 participants, has a margin of error of 2 percentage points. AtlasIntel did not receive payment for this survey from any political entity.

($1 = 5.6429 reais)