MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil's STF rules in favor of Bolsonaro holding social media accounts

“Globo has a marked encounter with me next year,”said Bolsonaro about the media giant

Brazil's Federal Supreme Court (STF) has ordered President Jair Bolsonaro's profiles on social media be kept active despite a motion from some Senators who wanted him banned for spreading what they said were “fake news” about the coronavirus.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes, known for being critical of Bolsonaro, rejected the request from the Senate's Parliamentary Investigations Commission on COVID-19 (known as CPI) to keep Bolsonaro away from social media.

The CPI had filed the request at the end of October after Bolsonaro linked COVID-19 vaccines to HIV, during his weekly live broadcast on Facebook, which in addition to Instagram and Twitter immediately suspended Bolsonaro's accounts.

The Supreme Court's ruling means Bolsonaro is allowed to keep his messages secret as well as stay in touch with his constituency through digital platforms. De Moraes claimed there was no point kreaking Bolsonaro's confidentiality after the CPI had already reached its conclusions on the way the head of state had handled the coronavirus pandemic.

Upon regaining control of his social media accounts, Bolsonaro has threatened to terminate O Globo's broadcast license which expires in October 2022, the month of the presidential elections.

“Globo has a marked encounter with me next year, an encounter with the truth ... I am not going to persecute anyone,” said the president on Monday night in Brasilia.

Bolsonaro likened Globo to a soldier who must be properly dressed. ”Whoever was a barracks soldier already knows that (the guard soldier) has to be with everything in order, everything fine, she (Globo) must also be, like any other company,“ said the former Army captain.

Hours before, Bolsonaro had had another meeting with supporters at the Alvorada presidential palace, during which he criticized the educational program of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the ”indoctrination“ with leftist values and even incitement to ”pedophilia” by a former minister of Lula's party.