Brazil's first lady Rosangela Lula da Silva, commonly known as “Janja,” criticized Tesla CEO and Twitter owner Elon Musk at a G20 event over the weekend and called for social media regulation.
Brazil is the host of this year's annual G20 summit. G20 members are currently gathering in Rio de Janeiro for a two-day meeting.
On Saturday, Brazil's first lady attended the weekend's sideline event, the Cria G20. Websitewhich aimed to bring together digital creators, activists, and communicators to “talk about hunger, inclusivity, and the climate emergency.”
Janja da Silva appeared on Saturday and gave a lengthy speech calling for regulation of social media to stop the spread of “false information” on the internet.
According to ReutersAs she spoke, the ship's foghorn blared. She responded by joking that Musk might be blowing a foghorn to drown out his speech.
“I'm not afraid of you!” she said in Portuguese, before adding in English, “Fuck you, Elon Musk.” Brazil's first lady then turned to influencer Felipe Neto and said, “I said fuck it, I can do it too,” to which the man responded, “You can do it, you should.”
Musk gave his first reaction on his social media site Twitter. message It is simply pronounced “lol”. This is an Internet acronym that means “laugh out loud.” Then he said, shared “They're going to lose the next election,” the comment said.
Over the past year, Twitter and Brazil's judiciary have been embroiled in a long feud that began when Mr. Musk first refused to comply with a censorship order issued by STF Minister Alexandre de Moraes. As a result, he was banned from Twitter for about a month. Brazil in late August.
Despite initially refusing to comply, Musk eventually cave He then forced Twitter to comply with Mr. de Moraes' censorship orders and pay a portion of the fee. $1.8 million It was fined until service was finally restored in Brazil in early October.
Janja da Silva claimed In his speech, de Moraes said he had been invited to a social event over the weekend, but was unable to attend due to safety concerns following the man's suicide. suicide bomb attack Last week outside Brazil's Supreme Court.
“We invited Minister Alexandre de Moraes. [but he didn’t come] Because something incredible happened in Brasilia this week and the bigot ended up killing himself with fireworks, but anyway? can't believe it. We laugh, but guys, this is serious. Look at what social networks can do to people's minds,” Brazil's first lady was quoted as saying.
Hours after his wife's speech, Brazil's radical leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, referred to her words in his remarks at the G20 Global Alliance to Fight Hunger, without directly addressing them. “We don't need to insult anyone,” he reportedly stressed. ”
“I want to say that this is a campaign that doesn't need to offend anyone, it doesn't need to insult anyone. What we need to do is infuriate society, infuriate the people who won the right to eat. , it's just that we have to unite people who don't have enough to eat.” said.
Janja, 58, is the third wife of the 79-year-old Brazilian president, and they began dating in 2017. The two reportedly dated throughout Lula's time in prison after being convicted on multiple corruption charges. relationship reportedly It was made public in May 2019 after Lula admitted it to economist Luis Carlos Bresser Pereira during a prison visit. Lula eventually revealed that Janja frequently visited her in prison and was listed as a “family member” on the prison's authorized visitor register.
couple married The socialists held a lavish nine-hour party in a lavish venue complete with fine wine. A report released at the time said Lula had banned his staff from using cellphones, fearing that images and footage from the party could be leaked.
Lula's ex-wife, Marisa Letizia Casa, died in 2007. 2017 After a stroke. His first wife, Maria de Lourdes Ribeiro, died of hepatitis. 1971.
Christian K. Caruso is a Venezuelan writer who chronicles life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
