This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.

JIMMY LOVAAS, HOST:

Welcome to the Factal Forecast, a look at the week’s biggest stories and what they mean from the editors at Factal. I’m Jimmy Lovaas.

Today is Sept. 5.

In this week’s forecast we’ve got Brazil’s ban on social media giant X, Boeing's Starliner returning to Earth without its crew, Kosovar Serbs calling for a border blockade, Spain’s prime minister visiting China and a public transport strike in Italy.

You can also read about these stories and more in our weekly newsletter, which you’ll find a link to in the show notes.

Brazil bans X, formerly known as Twitter

Information compiled by Jaime Calle Moreno

JIMMY: Up first, we’ll take a look at Brazil's recent banning of X, the social media network formerly known as Twitter. For more on that I’ve got fellow Factal Editor Jaime Calle Moreno.

JIMMY: Hello, Jaime.

JAIME: Hi, Jimmy. How's it going?

JIMMY: It's good. I'm glad you're here. You know, as two breaking news editors, we both spend, well, all day on Twitter, or X, as I suppose we're supposed to call it now, but there's a lot less news from Brazil coming through that site at the moment and I'm hoping you can get the audience up to speed on why. Can you give us a bit of a recap?

JAIME: Yeah, of course. So, particularly in Brazil, this all started a couple of months ago when Brazil's minister of the Supreme Court Alexandre de Moraes, during investigations into both Brazilian militia groups online, as well as, kind of, the January 8 Congress attack in 2023 in Brasilia, which was, if you remember, where a bunch of pro-Bolsonaro protesters stormed the building and clashed with police officers. Pretty much what de Moraes has done is ordered the suspension of around 140 accounts on X, formerly known as Twitter, as you mentioned, on the basis of spreading disinformation and hate speech. And he's kind of said publicly that they're anti democratic. While in the beginning, Elon Musk and X seemed like they were going to comply, it snowballed recently into a tug of war between Elon Musk and this minister, Alexander de Moraes. So the failure to comply meant that the Brazilian minister began imposing fines on the company and as the fines continued to go unpaid de Moraes threatened to arrest the legal representative of the platform in Brazil, to which then X responded by closing the offices down without a legal representative. Then de Moraes issued an online subpoena through X, which is in itself a pretty crazy thing. This was on August 28 ,by the way, stating that if a legal representative from the company was not appointed to Brazil, the Supreme Court would then suspend its operations in the country. The day after, Starlink, which is that internet connectivity provider that Musk has through his other company, SpaceX, also met the fury of de Moraes. Its accounts were blocked on the basis that both companies are part of the same kind of economic entity. In other words, to ensure the fines of around $9 million at this point were paid to Brazil. Musk generally ignored the subpoena as well as the account blocking and launched into his own war of words through his platform, calling de Moraes a dictator, rather than a judge, and reposting tweets that earmarked him as kind of a massive censor and among other names that I won't repeat here. True to his word de Moraes, then on August 30, called on the country's general communications agency, Anatel, to ensure the blocking effects across the country and effectively suspend the platform from operations there. It's a bit complicated and convoluted, but that's kind of the general recap overall. 

JIMMY: And what's the latest? There been any new developments? 

JAIME: Yeah, well, the tug of war continues, Jimmy. Elon Musk doesn't seem to be budging on his criticism of de Moraes and de Moraes, who was previously called Musk an outlaw that allows kind of mass disinformation on his platform, has already said that a fine of up to $9,000 will be handed out to people who use VPNs, or virtual private networks, where you can kind of access sites not available in your home country, which we use often. Now, this has been criticized by legal experts in Brazil as it doesn't kind of necessarily enforce a suspension, but kind of calling it a generic fine that doesn't allow for individual review or an assessment of that particular person who's used that VPN to access the platform. Additionally, the Supreme Court, on Monday, unanimously ratified de Moraes and upheld the platform's suspension. Now, there's around 20 million users in Brazil. And, first of all, it's one of the platform's largest countries – I think it's sixth or seventh on the list of total users. There's also around, I think, 250,000 Starlink customers, which typically is kind of a good product for people in very rural areas of Brazil that don't really have access to internet providers. Starlink has now, after initially refusing to comply with the orders and the blocking of their accounts, they've now said that they will follow the suspension. In a large part, I suspect, because if they didn't, Anatel, that general communications agency, could then seize their assets. Now, Google and the Apple Store were also listed in the initial order to remove the application from the platforms, but that, in the end, was taken off the order itself.

JIMMY: Well, what sort of reactions to all this have you seen?

JAIME: Well, as I've mentioned, Musk is definitely not too pleased with the suspension and it seems that he's kind of waiting to see how the ball drops domestically for Brazilian users and whether they push back on de Moraes and the Supreme Court. Domestically, though, de Moraes has the backing he needs – even Brazil's President Lula has supported the suspension and so has the Supreme Court. I think here it's quite important to note how much power de Moraes actually has. To give a very brief backdrop of him, as many listeners maybe won't really know who he is, or won't have heard of him, he's been a judge in the Supreme Court since 2017, but his appointment as president of the Superior Electoral Court has kind of risen him to new levels, specifically on online content moderation, as well as obviously more criticism. He has consistently been at the forefront of investigations into corruption and online disinformation, for example, into Jair Bolsonaro and his far-right supporters. He also led the investigation that arrested high-ranking political and police figures in the Brazilian Congress attack, which was quite a big profile investigation in Brazil. And he also, in October 2022, similar to what he's doing now, he suspended the messaging app Telegram for the same kind of reasons as now. Through his actions, it's pretty easy to see that he has zero tolerance for what he deems as disinformation, misinformation, hate speech, fake news, and really anything in between. Many of his critics have argued that he imprisons people on a whim for posting threats online, he orders raids on businesses with very little support as to why exactly, and he does so pretty much without transparency and kind of completely unilaterally with very little oversight. Others say he's doing something that needs to be done, which is tackling the very difficult and global question of online disinformation, and is doing so very well. What is fair to say, though, is that Brazil's large right wing following are definitely not in favor of the ban whatsoever. Internationally, though, countries like the US have advocated for free speech, but there is a growing discontent with X's content moderation. I mean, we've seen this, Jimmy, as well. This has also happened in the US during the election campaign in the UK, following the riots in Southport against immigrants, in Australia, and even in France, where just recently, Telegram Founder Pavel Durov was arrested for allegedly facilitating crimes through the messaging platform. So it's a bit of a difficult situation internationally.

JIMMY: Well, considering all that, what do you think folks should be watching for next?

JAIME: Well, it's really difficult to tell exactly where this word tug of war will lead, Jimmy, but it seems to me that de Moraes has quite a lot of backing and power in Brazil to really enforce this, leaving Musk and X kind of in a difficult place. It's one of the largest users of X, but at the same time, Musk really hasn't had any issues in pushing back against his critics. What is more interesting, I think, is what other countries do next. I mean, I've mentioned there's this growing discontent globally with social media platforms and and content moderation, and it's an extremely politicized issue which can cause further discontent in whatever side is being moderated. I mean, just to give a couple examples, we've seen X being suspended in Pakistan, Venezuela and Russia – all countries that seemingly used it at the time to block information during concerns of electoral fraud, repression, protests, human rights violations and outright invasions, as we saw was the case with Russia two years ago with Ukraine. British police even began arresting people for posting threats and enciting to violence on X, particularly after the recent riots we've seen in the last in the last couple of months. Content moderation and the spread of false information, hate speech, in an attempt to influence others, really is a kind of double edged sword, and Brazil is by far the biggest democracy in the world to ban a social media platform. Whether or not it's a big turning point in how different countries interact with the social media giants is another thing entirely. What is very clear, though, is that the ban of X in Brazil could stoke tensions between the left and the right, with the right-wing supporters feeling quite hard done by the censorship. And this is something that has been consistent in Brazilian politics since Jair Bolsonaro was president a couple of years back. It's really a difficult question for those in the US, the EU and in the UK, as well as other places where these conversations are happening constantly. So, it'll be really interesting to see how the situation unfolds, not just in Brazil, but also whether it kind of creates a ripple effect in South and Central America, across countries like Nicaragua and El Salvador. So it's an interesting case.

JIMMY: Well, Jaime, sadly, we do need to pause there for today, but thank you for getting us caught up. I guess we'll all be together watching to see how this plays out. Appreciate it.

JAIME: Thanks for having me. Jimmy.

Boeing's uncrewed Starliner could return

Information compiled by Awais Ahmad

JIMMY: Boeing’s Starliner is scheduled to undock from the International Space Station tomorrow for its six-hour journey back to Earth.

However, it’ll be doing so without a crew after problems with the spacecraft have left two astronauts stuck in orbit.

Within the first 24 hours of its flight, Starliner began to experience glitches with its propulsion and parachute systems. 

The propulsion system controls the spacecraft’s movements in space and makes minute changes in orientation. The parachute system is deployed to slow it down during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. 

Due to issues with these systems, NASA has deemed a crewed return too risky, saying that the two astronauts will be brought back on a separate mission early next year on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.

Now, Starliner’s technical issues and delays throw a wrench into Boeing’s plan for multiple crewed missions to the ISS within the decade. It also leaves the spacecraft's future in a limbo. 

NASA opting for SpaceX could therefore signify a shift in its allocations of resources, potentially giving rise to emerging players in the spaceflight industry, including Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.

Kosovar Serbs call for border blockade

Information compiled by James Morgan

JIMMY: The head of the Mitrovica Citizens's Association Rasa Rojevic has announced a blockade of all administrative border crossings with Serbia in North Kosovo starting tomorrow. 

Ethnic Serbs in Kosovo’s Serb-majority north have been protesting police raids on local administration offices in the region. 

The offices, also known as “parallel institutions,” have been declared unconstitutional by the ethnic-Albanian-led central government on the grounds they are backed by Serbia. 

The move to close five offices on Sep. 30 has raised tensions and prompted criticism from the U.S. embassy. 

It said such actions “continue to have a direct and negative effect on members of the ethnic Serb community and other minority communities in Kosovo.”

Now, the move by ethnic Serbs to blockade border points is a significant escalation in the region. 

Tensions are likely to continue to rise if the central government continues to close Serb-run parallel institutions in north Kosovo. 

Rojevic has called on Serbs from Montenegro, Republika Srpska and Serbia to participate in the blockade. 

Disruption and potential confrontations between security forces and protesters are expected. They may even escalate into clashes at border points given previous protests in the area have resulted in violent clashes and the intervention of KFOR forces.

Spain's prime minister to visit China

Information compiled by Hua Hsieh

JIMMY: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is set to meet President Xi Jinping during a six-day trip to China starting Saturday.

The visit comes amid ongoing trade disputes between China and the European Union. 

That dispute came after Brussels announced provisional duties on Chinese-made electric vehicles in June, over what European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called “massively subsidized electric cars.” 

In retaliation, China’s commerce ministry has opened an anti-dumping investigation into pork, dairy and brandy imports from the EU. 

Spain, the EU’s largest pork exporter, constitutes 22 percent of China’s imported pork and its by-products in 2023 and is expected to be the worst affected.

Now, while analysts said that Beijing could potentially turn to Russia and South America to replace pork products, punitive measures from the Chinese side could have a significant impact on the EU's pork sector. 

After all, large portions of the bloc’s pork exports includes pig ears, feet, and offal that are rarely consumed by Europeans. 

According to government sources, Sanchez’s visit will be joined by a deputy trade minister and discussions will likely touch on the ongoing tension between Brussels and China.

Italy public transport strikes

Information compiled by Irene Villora

JIMMY: A series of air travel and public transport strikes will begin in Italy on Saturday.

The strikes are over working conditions and compensation.

Air travel disruptions are expected at some airports in Rome, Olbia, Milan, Florence and Pisa, with ground operations workers, including air traffic controllers and baggage handlers, on strike on Saturday. 

A nationwide rail strike on Monday will be followed by a national public transport workers’ walkout on Tuesday. 

The latter will include disruptions of bus, tram and underground services for eight hours.

Now, the strikes are expected to impact thousands of national and international passengers during the last days of the holiday season and the first days of the school year. 

Similar strike actions are planned well into the end of the month, with five additional dates announced by multiple air and public transport carriers between Sept. 19 and 30.

JIMMY: As always, thank you for listening to the Factal Forecast. We publish our forward-looking podcast and newsletter each Thursday to help you get a jump-start on the week ahead. Please subscribe and review wherever you find your podcasts. We’d love it if you’d consider telling a friend about us.  

Today’s episode includes work from Factal editors Awais Ahmad, James Morgan, Hua Hsieh and Irene Villora. Our interview featured editor Jaime Calle Moreno and our podcast is produced and edited by me – Jimmy Lovaas. Our music comes courtesy of Andrew Gospe.

Until next time, if you have any feedback, suggestions or events we’ve missed, drop us a note by emailing hello@factal.com

This transcript may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability not guaranteed. 

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Music: 'Factal Theme' courtesy of Andrew Gospe