Social media platforms have a tendency to not be that bothered by nationwide boundaries.
Take X, for instance. Customers of what was as soon as referred to as Twitter span the globe, with its 600 millions-plus lively accounts dotted throughout practically each nation. And every of these jurisdictions has its personal legal guidelines.
However the pursuits of nationwide regulatory efforts and that of predominantly U.S.-based expertise corporations usually don’t align. Whereas many governments have sought to impose oversight mechanisms to deal with issues akin to disinformation, on-line extremism and manipulation, these initiatives have been met with company resistance, political interference and authorized challenges invoking free speech as a defend towards regulation.
What’s brewing is a world wrestle over digital platform governance. And on this battle, U.S. platforms are more and more leaning on American legal guidelines to problem different nation’s laws. It’s, we consider as consultants on digital regulation – one an government director of a discussion board monitoring how nations implement democratic rules – a type of digital imperialism.
A rumble within the tech jungle
The newest manifestation of this phenomenon occurred in February 2025, when new tensions emerged between Brazil’s judiciary and U.S.-based social media platforms.
Trump Media & Know-how Group and Rumble filed a lawsuit within the U.S. towards Brazilian Supreme Courtroom Justice Alexandre de Moraes, difficult his orders to droop accounts on the 2 platforms linked to disinformation campaigns in Brazil.
The case follows earlier unsuccessful efforts by Elon Musk’s X to withstand related Brazilian rulings.
Collectively, the instances exemplify a rising pattern through which U.S. political and company actors try to undermine international regulatory authority by urgent the case that home U.S. regulation and company protections ought to take priority over sovereign insurance policies globally.
From company lobbying to lawfare
On the core of the dispute is Allan dos Santos, a right-wing Brazilian influencer and fugitive from justice who fled to the U.S. in 2021 after De Moraes ordered his preventive arrest for allegedly coordinating disinformation networks and inciting violence.
Dos Santos has continued his on-line actions overseas. Brazil’s extradition requests have gone unanswered resulting from claims by U.S. authorities that the case includes problems with free speech somewhat than legal offenses.
Trump Media and Rumble’s lawsuit makes an attempt to do two issues. First, it seeks to border Brazil’s judicial actions as censorship somewhat than oversight. And second, it seeks to painting the Brazilian court docket motion as territorial overreach.
Their place is that because the goal of the motion was within the U.S., they’re topic to U.S. free speech protections beneath the First Modification. The truth that the topic of the ban was Brazilian and is accused of spreading disinformation and hate in Brazil mustn’t, they argue, matter.
For now, U.S. courts agree. In late February, a Florida-based decide dominated that Rumble and Trump Media needn’t adjust to the Brazilian order.
Huge Tech pushback to regulation
The case indicators an vital shift within the contest over platform accountability – a transfer from company lobbying and political strain to direct authorized intervention in international jurisdictions. U.S. courts at the moment are getting used to problem abroad choices concerning platform accountability.
The end result and the broader authorized technique behind the lawsuit may have far-reaching implications not just for Brazil however for any nation or area – such because the European Union – trying to manage on-line areas.
The resistance towards digital regulation predates the Trump administration.
In Brazil, efforts to manage social media platforms have lengthy confronted substantial opposition. Huge Tech corporations – together with Google, Meta and X – have used their financial and political affect to foyer towards tighter regulation, usually framing such insurance policies as a menace to free expression.
Google and Meta launched high-profile campaigns to oppose the invoice, warning it could “threaten free speech” and “harm small businesses.” Google positioned banners on its Brazilian homepage urging customers to reject the laws, whereas Meta ran commercials questioning its implications for the digital economic system.
These efforts, alongside lobbying and political resistance, have been profitable in serving to to delay and weaken the regulatory framework.
Mixing company and political energy
The distinction now could be that challenges are blurring the road between the company and the political.
Trump Media was 53% owned by the U.S. president earlier than he moved his stake right into a revocable belief in December 2024. Elon Musk, the free speech fundamentalist proprietor of X, is a de facto member of the Trump administration.
Their ascent to energy has coincided with the First Modification being wielded as a defend towards international laws on digital platforms.
Free speech protections within the U.S. have been utilized unequally, permitting authorities to suppress dissent in some instances whereas shielding hateful speech in others.
This imbalance extends to company energy, with many years of authorized precedent increasing protections for personal pursuits. The case regulation cemented company speech protections, a logic later prolonged to digital platforms.
U.S. free speech advocates in Huge Tech and the U.S. authorities are seemingly escalating this pattern to an much more excessive interpretation: that American free speech arguments might be deployed to withstand the regulation of different jurisdictions and problem international authorized frameworks.
As an example, in response to the European Union’s Digital Companies Act, U.S. Federal Communications Fee Chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee, expressed issues that the act may threaten American free speech rules.
Brazilian Supreme Courtroom Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who has fought disinformation on tech platforms, attends a session of the nation’s excessive court docket on Feb. 26.
Ton Molina/NurPhoto by way of Getty Pictures
Such an argument might have been high quality if the identical interpretation of free speech – and its acceptable protections – have been universally accepted. However they aren’t.
The idea of free speech varies considerably throughout nations and areas.
Nations akin to Brazil, Germany, France and others undertake what authorized consultants check with as a proportionality-based strategy to free speech, balancing it towards different basic rights akin to human dignity, democratic integrity and public order.
Sovereign nations utilizing this strategy acknowledge freedom of expression as a basic and preferential proper. However in addition they acknowledge that sure restrictions are mandatory to guard democratic establishments, marginalized communities, public well being and the informational ecosystem from harms.
Whereas the U.S. imposes some limits on speech – akin to defamation legal guidelines and safety towards incitement to imminent lawless motion – the First Modification is mostly way more expansive than in different democracies.
The way forward for digital governance
The authorized battle over platform regulation isn’t confined to the present battle between U.S.-based platforms and Brazil. The EU’s Digital Companies Act and the On-line Security Act in the UK are different examples of governments attempting to say management over platforms working inside their borders.
As such, the lawsuit by Trump Media and Rumble towards the Brazilian Supreme Courtroom indicators a vital second in international geopolitics.
U.S. tech giants, akin to Meta, are bending to the free speech winds popping out of the Trump administration. Musk, the proprietor of X, has given assist to far-right teams abroad.
And this overlap within the coverage priorities of social media platforms and the political pursuits of the U.S. administration opens a brand new period within the deregulation debate through which U.S. free speech absolutists are searching for to determine authorized precedents that may problem the way forward for different nations’ regulatory efforts.
As nations proceed to develop regulatory frameworks for digital governance – as an example, AI regulation imposing stricter governance guidelines in Brazil and within the EU – the authorized, financial and political methods platforms make use of to problem oversight mechanisms will play a vital function in figuring out the longer term steadiness between company affect and the rule of regulation.
