WASHINGTON/SAO PAULO, Feb 19 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's Trump Media & Technology Group and video-sharing platform Rumble filed a lawsuit against a Brazilian Supreme Court justice on Wednesday, accusing him of illegal censorship.
The lawsuit, lodged in the U.S. District Court in Tampa, asserts that the judge's previous orders "censor legitimate political discourse in the United States," as stated by Trump Media.
In response, Rumble stated in a release that the lawsuit accuses the justice of "violating the free speech protections of the First Amendment" by suspending the U.S.-based accounts of a prominent but unnamed politically vocal user.
Over the past few years, the justice, Alexandre de Moraes, has issued numerous rulings to block social media accounts, part of his campaign against perceived threats to democracy and the manipulation of information for political purposes in Brazil.
Requests for comment from Brazil's Supreme Court and Moraes' office went unanswered for now.
As majority owner of Trump Media, which oversees his private social media platform Truth Social, the U.S. president has handed over control of his various enterprises to his children while in office. The company's vice president, JD Vance, previously invested in the Florida-based Rumble in 2021.
Rumble briefly restricted access for users in Brazil in 2023, following court directives to "remove specific creators," a measure it plans to challenge, citing a change in censorship orders in Brazil earlier this year.
Justice Moraes engaged in a public feud with Elon Musk last year and was behind the Supreme Court's decision to shut down Musk-owned X in Brazil due to non-compliance with court mandates.
In January, Moraes stated that tech firms must comply with regulations to continue operating in Brazil, emphasizing that the court will not permit them to profit from hate speech.