More than 20 days after the start of the “Twitter Files” scandal, the South African businessman Elon Muskowner of the social network X, appears to be winning the digital image battle against the minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), Alexandre de Moraes.
According to a study carried out by professor Lilian Carvalhocoordinator of the Center for Digital Marketing Studies at FGV/EAESP, Musk would have 45% of positive mentions, against 59% of criticism received by Moraes.
O Twitter Files began on April 6, when Musk published posts on X denouncing the minister’s illegal actions Moraes, which would have ordered the censorship of profiles and the cancellation of messages without a legal basis. Even threatening employees of the social network with arrest if they failed to comply with orders.
According to the FGV survey, in the last 7 days Musk received more than 97 thousand mentions, with a peak recorded on April 21st.
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Of these, 45% are considered positive, which reflects a significant approval of his performance in the case and, possibly, of his management at the head of X.
On the other hand, in the same period Alexandre de Moraes received more than 30 thousand mentions, with a peak on April 20th, and a predominance of negative mentions that reached 59%.
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“This polarization of opinions reveals a lot about the current state of the Brazilian public debate, especially on issues of freedom of expression and internet regulation”, says Carvalho.
Musk criticized for allowing blocked profiles to return
The research shows that criticism related to the performance of Musk as owner of X refer to allowing previously banned accounts on Brazillike that of Allan dos Santoscontinue to post on social media freely.
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“This fact is seen by many as a direct challenge to Brazilian laws, since the content of these accounts is accessible to users from other countries or to Brazilians who use a VPN”, says the professor.
On the other hand, the teacher explains that critics of Moraes they see their actions as authoritarian and exceeding their jurisdiction. This is because Allan dos Santos It is Monarkanother target of Moraes, no longer reside in Brazil and their posts are made from another country and are not accessible to Brazilians who do not use tools to deliberately access these contents.
According to Carvalho, popularity and feelings linked to Musk seem to indicate that, at the moment, he is “winning” this narrative war on social media.
