Left-wing Hollywood actor Mark Ruffalo has sided with Brazilian President Lula da Silva's decision to block Elon Musk's social media platform X, making it largely inaccessible both via the web and its mobile apps.
The nationwide ban was imposed after Mr. X failed to meet a deadline set by Minister Alexandre de Moraes of the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court (STF) to appoint a legal representative in Brazil.
De Moraes, the US equivalent of a Supreme Court justice, subpoenaed X and its owner Elon Musk in a post on the site on Wednesday night. This is the first time that Brazil's highest court has issued a subpoena on social media, and it has been reported that the STF itself has described it as an “unprecedented” move.
As reported by Breitbart News, this marks an escalation of a months-long feud between Musk and the far-left de Moraes over free speech and alleged misinformation.
The court order, which was digitally signed by De Moraes, came a week after X announced it was closing its offices in Brazil. According to X's global government affairs team, the decision was in response to De Moraes threatening to arrest the platform's Brazilian legal team if they did not comply with the censorship order, as noted by Breitbart's Christian K. Caruso.
“Avengers” star Ruffalo has now backed the ban and criticized Musk for refusing to cooperate with Brazilian authorities. He wrote on X:
“Elon Musk has shown total disrespect for Brazilian sovereignty, especially its judiciary, by positioning himself as a truly supranational entity, immune from national laws,” de Moraes wrote. He's a weirdo, entitled billionaire techie, and we should tax him.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk was quick to respond on his own platform, calling his Hollywood opponent an “idiot.”
Other X users also fired back at Musk, accusing Ruffalo of siding with a foreign authoritarian government over free speech.
Others pointed out the irony of Ruffalo using X's platform to voice his opinions while criticizing free speech.
The controversy began in April, when a judge ordered the suspension of dozens of X's accounts for spreading false information.
Reacting to the ruling, Musk said at the time: “Freedom of speech is the foundation of democracy, and Brazil's unelected pseudo-judges are destroying it for political purposes.”
The social media network is said to be used by at least a tenth of the country's 200 million people.
By Saturday morning, some users reported being unable to access the platform, the BBC reported. Reports.
The head of Brazil's communications agency, tasked with shutting down the platform, said the country was “on track to comply” with the shutdown, according to Reuters.
Judge Moraes also gave companies like Apple and Google five days to remove X from their app stores and block it from use on iOS and Android systems.
Meanwhile, bank accounts of Musk's satellite internet company Starlink have been frozen in Brazil by order of the Brazilian Supreme Court.
