🚨The Brazil Censorship Files, Part III We subpoenaed secret censorship orders from Brazilian Supreme Court Justice…

🚨The Brazil Censorship Files, Part III We subpoenaed secret censorship orders from Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. We received them as part of our oversight of how foreign censorship affects the rights of American citizens. Our takeaway: Moraes and other Brazilian officials are trying to censor AMERICAN speech. 🧵

The Committee has warned about Justice Moraes’s secret censorship campaign for two years. In 2024, we released two reports detailing Brazil’s censorship regime and the Biden-Harris Administration’s silence on the issue. And in February 2025, we subpoenaed Big Tech’s communications with foreign censors who are trying to silence Americans’ online speech. In response, Big Tech has produced thousands of documents providing additional evidence of Brazilian censorship demands. Read our first report here: judiciary.house.gov/media/press-re… Read our second report here: judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subs…

These documents show that since at least July 2020, Brazilian judges—particularly Justice Moraes—have tried to force tech companies to remove or censor accounts globally, directly infringing on American free speech and U.S. sovereignty.

Brazilian judges have openly admitted that they are trying to censor speech from “outside [Brazil’s] national borders.” That’s right: these Brazilian judges claim the extraordinary power to demand the global removal of posts that originate in the United States and elsewhere. It is a direct threat to free expression and national sovereignty around the world.

Many of these Brazilian censorship orders specifically target American speech. Justice Moraes has repeatedly tried to silence American podcasters and influencers. When platforms like X and Rumble refused to enforce these illegal orders on behalf of a foreign government, Justice Moraes banned the platforms.

Brazil’s primary censorship agency, the Integrated Center for Confronting Disinformation and Defending Democracy (CIEDDE), also targets American speech. Documents show that CIEDDE tried to force X to censor political speech praising President Trump and criticizing former President Biden. X held the line and refused to take the posts down.

Even worse, these Brazilian censorship orders—particularly those from Justice Moraes—show a clear pattern: They target political enemies. Moraes routinely orders the removal of posts that criticize him. He also tries to silence anyone who advocates for free speech. After Eduardo Bolsonaro—a member of the Brazilian Congress and the son of former President Bolsonaro—reportedly urged the U.S. government to sanction Moraes for his censorship, Moraes targeted Bolsonaro with censorship orders of his own for “circulating false news about officials of the national financial system, particularly Banco do Brasil.”

At the same time, Moraes voted to put Eduardo Bolsonaro on trial for his advocacy work IN THE UNITED STATES to protect free speech and fair elections in Brazil. Read more here: reuters.com/world/americas…

These are blatant attempts by Moraes to attack his political rivals ahead of Brazil’s presidential election in October, in which Eduardo Bolsonaro’s brother, Flavio, is a leading candidate. That kind of political interference casts serious doubt on the fairness of the election. And this is not new. Moraes issued similar censorship orders during the 2022 presidential race, targeting negative content about the radical leftist candidate Lula da Silva.

Brazil’s censorship regime may be focused on political enemies today, but its global ambitions are unmistakable. Documents produced to the Committee show that Brazil has coordinated its censorship efforts with other foreign censorship regimes and Stanford University.

And this isn’t Stanford’s first time colluding with government censors: the Committee previously exposed its central role in laundering U.S. government censorship requests to social media companies to influence the 2020 U.S. elections. Stanford disbanded the organization responsible for those censorship efforts. But they are clearly back at it again. Only this time, Stanford has moved from enabling domestic censorship to aiding and abetting foreign censors. Read our report on how the Biden-Harris administration partnered with universities to censor American speech here: judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subs…

In September 2025, Stanford hosted a forum for some of the West’s most notorious government censors—including Brazil, Australia, the European Union, and the United Kingdom—to compare notes on how best to engage in global censorship. An American university should not be helping assemble an international censorship cartel. It is a direct affront to the First Amendment.

Now, Brazil’s Supreme Court is looking to engage in a systematic global censorship effort targeted at disfavored online speech. In June 2025, the Court stripped liability protections from social media platforms that do not immediately remove specific user-flagged content. The goal is clear: platforms are pushed to censor at scale or face devastating legal risk.

Put it all together: global takedown orders and platform bans targeting American speech, collusion with other foreign censors on U.S. soil, and the weaponization of legal institutions for platforms fail to immediately censor disfavored content. Why? To force American companies to establish a massive global censorship regime.

The global reach of these censorship orders and legal changes is not an unintended consequence. It is the very point. Americans’ speech rights should never be curtailed by foreign government officials seeking to silence dissent beyond their borders. These escalating attacks pose a serious threat to both the rights of Americans and U.S. sovereignty.

The Committee will continue to conduct oversight and develop legislative remedies to protect the First Amendment from foreign censorship threats. Read the full report here: judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subs…