Several politicians, members of the private sector, civil society and the media accused de Moraes of practicing nepotism, political interference, political repression, abuse of power and deploying a constitutional dictatorship.[27][28][29]
American journalist and lawyer Glenn Greenwald has criticized several decisions of de Moraes, accusing him of censorship and undermining freedom of speech.[30]
In 2023, The New York Times published a piece entitled "He Is Brazil’s Defender of Democracy. Is He Actually Good for Democracy?" The article questioned if the decisions of de Moraes were beneficial for democracy, and noted that he "has jailed people without trial for posting threats on social media; helped sentence a sitting congressman to nearly nine years in prison for threatening the court; ordered raids on businessmen with little evidence of wrongdoing; suspended an elected governor from his job; and unilaterally blocked dozens of accounts and thousands of posts on social media, with virtually no transparency or room for appeal."[5] Twitter owner Elon Musk, responding to Glenn Greenwald on Twitter, said de Moraes's moves were "extremely concerning", while Beatriz Rey, a political scientist at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, said de Moraes's approach, while not ideal, was necessary because other branches of government, especially the legislature, had not done their duty.[5]
In April 2024, X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk accused de Moraes of "brazenly and repeatedly betraying the constitution and people of Brazil" in response to the Supreme Federal Court's order to block several X accounts, arguing combat of misinformation as the reason. This in turn resulted in the Supreme Federal Court opening a criminal inquiry against Musk for spreading misinformation and alleged obstruction of investigations. The exchange has elicited mixed reactions both from Brazilian politicians as well as international netizens.[31][32][33][34] In August 2024, X's press service accused de Moraes of threatening to arrest the social network's employees in Brazil for failing to comply with blocking orders. In response, X announced the closure of its representative office in the country. Access to X for Brazilian users was to remain. Elon Musk again lashed out at the judge and proposed impeaching him.[35][36]
On August 30, 2024 X was suspended nationwide for failing to follow the directive. In addition, de Moraes also ordered the removal of all virtual private network apps from Brazilian app stores, setting a fine of 50,000 Brazilian reals (roughly $8,900 USD) per day for anyone using VPNs to access X