Brazil Issues Arrest Warrant for U.S. Citizen & UK Arrests Protestors for Trump-Epstein Projection | The Free Flow 9/18/25
Trump files a defamation suit against the New York Times, Brazil issues an arrest warrant for a naturalized U.S. citizen, a Chinese censorship company sells its systems to governments abroad, and more
This Week At A Glance 🔎
— 🇺🇲 Trump Files Defamation Suit Against New York Times
— 🇧🇷 Brazil Issues Arrest Warrant for Naturalized Florida Resident
— 🇨🇳 Chinese Censorship Company Exporting Systems to Governments
— 🇬🇧 UK Arrests Protestors for Projecting Trump-Epstein images on Windsor Castle
First of All 🇺🇲
» Trump Admin Threatens Prosecution and Visa Revocation Over Charlie Kirk Comments
Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk last Wednesday, numerous individuals who have posted or made comments perceived as celebrating his death (or even criticizing Kirk’s politics) are facing threats of hate speech prosecution and visa revocation or denial.
Visa Revocation:
On Thursday, the Trump administration suggested it could deny or revoke existing visas for making light of Kirk’s assassination.
In a statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, he said, “If you are here on a visa and cheering on the public assassination of a political figure, prepare to be deported.”
Prosecution for Hate Speech:
Days later, Attorney General Pam Bondi said in an interview, “There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society.”
She added, “We will absolutely target you, go after you if you are targeting anyone with hate speech, anything, and that’s across the aisle.”
In a follow-up post on X, Bondi attempted to walk back her comments by posting, “Hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment. It’s a crime.”
Our Take: Ashkhen Kazaryan, in a post on The Bedrock Principle, argues “Advocating hateful ideas in general, or talking about violence in some abstract future sense, is protected, because the incitement exception is limited to immediate calls for unlawful action. Cheering for someone’s death, or saying that the person deserved to die, is also constitutionally protected speech.”
» Activists Create Online Database Amid Calls for Firings Over Kirk Posts
An anonymously run online database has emerged, compiling information about individuals who have criticized Charlie Kirk or celebrated his death.
At the same time, professionals across industries face job losses or investigations over such comments.
Doxxing Database:
An anonymous group called the Charlie Kirk Data Foundation created a database of over 60,000 people who allegedly criticized Kirk or celebrated his death.
The database purports to be “searchable by general location, employer, and industry type” and run by high-profile “political operatives.”
Professional Consequences:
Teachers, firefighters, elected officials, and more have either lost their jobs or are under investigation after comments made about the murder.
MSNBC contributor Matthew Dowd was fired after suggesting on air that Charlie Kirk's "hate speech" led to hateful actions against him.
Our Take: Jacob Mchangama recently wrote: “Those who celebrate the killing of a political opponent deserve moral condemnation, and their ideas should be challenged before they make further inroads into the body politic. An ideological online inquisition seeking to punish people for social media comments is not the way to achieve this important goal. Unfortunately, this seems to be the direction that several conservative activists and influencers have gone down with tacit and not-so-tacit support from the White House.”
» ABC Pulls Jimmy Kimmel Live! Off Air After FCC Chair Threatens Agency Action
Following FCC Chairman Brendan Carr's suggestion that the agency would take punitive action against Disney and ABC in response to Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue about the Charlie Kirk shooting, ABC indefinitely suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live!
FCC Chairman’s Remarks:
During his late-night show, Kimmel implied that Kirk’s alleged assassin might have been a pro-Trump Republican.
This prompted Carr to denounce the remarks as “the sickest conduct possible.”
Speaking to podcaster Benny Johnson, Carr linked Kimmel’s comments to the FCC’s authority over broadcast licenses:
“What people don’t understand is that the broadcasters … have a license granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest. When we see stuff like this, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
He went further, suggesting suspension or stronger remedies could be on the table: “Calls for Kimmel to be fired — I think, you could certainly see a path forward for a suspension over this. You know, the FCC is going to have remedies.”
ABC’s Action:
ABC affiliate stations, which are licensed by the FCC, made the first move.
Before ABC announced Kimmel’s removal, Nextar Media Group, which owns about 10% of ABC’s affiliate stations, announced that it would preempt Kimmel’s show “for the foreseeable future” because of his statements about Kirk.
Sinclair Media Group, which also owns ABC affiliate stations, followed up with an announcement that it was also pulling the show and replacing it with a tribute to Charlie Kirk.
» Trump Sues The New York Times for Defamation
The New York Times and some of its reporters are facing a $15 billion lawsuit from President Trump, which alleges it published articles and a book that falsely claim his fortune and reputation were partially built on fraud.
Details:
The suit cites an interview with retired U.S. Marine Corps Gen. John F. Kelly, who said he believed Trump met the definition of a fascist, after he had served as chief of staff during the President’s first term.
Trump’s legal team also argued the Times wrongly gave Mark Burnett, producer of The Apprentice, credit for the success of the NBC reality contest show Trump starred in and hosted.
This follows threats made by Donald Trump last week to sue the Times for publishing articles related to a sexually aggressive note and drawing given to Jeffrey Epstein, a financier who was charged with sex trafficking minors and conspiracy in 2019.
Trump had already brought a $10 billion defamation suit over the note and drawing against The Wall Street Journal, who had reported on the existence of the note before it was released by the House Oversight Committee.
Context:
The President previously sued ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos and Paramount over its “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris, which were both settled for $15 million and $16 million, respectively.
Our Take: In the filing, the attorneys for the president say that this “feels like actual malice … in a colloquial way.” That’s not the legal standard for defamation; the legal standard is “actual malice,” not what feelings there are about speech. — Ashkhen Kazaryan
The Digital Age 🤖
» Brazil Issues Warrant for Naturalized U.S. Citizen Over Social Media Posts
A Brazilian Supreme Court justice has issued an arrest warrant for Flávia Magalhães, a naturalized U.S. citizen currently living in Florida, over social media posts criticizing Brazil’s president and judiciary.
Details:
Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who previously suspended the social media platforms X and Rumble, said the warrant was issued to “to guarantee public order.”
Moraes blocked Magalhães X account in Brazil because of posts she made in Florida in 2022, criticizing Brazil’s judiciary.
An order to place Magalhães in pretrial detention was issued after she continued posting on X, though she claims she never received official notice of the block.
U.S. Government Response:
The U.S. has previously warned Brazil that foreign judicial orders have no legal force within the U.S.
Florida U.S. District Court Judge Mary S. Scriven is set to rule on whether the U.S. Constitution protects Magalhães.
Our Take: Brazil’s attempt to jail a US citizen for political speech made on American soil is a clear case of extraterritorial overreach. Brazil criminalizing criticism of politicians and trying to enforce this across borders poses a serious threat to the principle that speech protected under the US Constitution cannot be punished by foreign regimes. — Ashkhen Kazaryan
» Malaysia Targets Whistleblower Channels on Telegram
Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur High Court issued an injunction against the messaging app Telegram to bar two channels, known for publishing whistle-blower-style exposés about public institutions and enforcement agencies, from sharing “harmful content.”
Details: The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission accused the Edisi Siasat and Edisi Khas channels of publishing “menacing, grossly malicious statements” and doxxing officials in public institutions.
» Chinese Company Sells Censorship Systems to Governments
A leak of more than 100,000 documents has revealed that the Chinese company Geedge, a prominent contributor in the Chinese government’s “Great Firewall,” has been exporting its censorship and surveillance systems to governments around the world.
Background:
Geedge Networks is a network-monitoring provider founded in 2018 that has invested in the Chinese government on its “Great Firewall,” which they use to block websites and VPN tools, as well as monitor specific individuals.
The leak reveals that Geedge is selling its flagship product, the Tiangou Secure Gateway (TSG), which can scale to process the internet traffic of an entire country and set up additional rules for suspicious users, to several governments.
The tool can intercept unencrypted internet traffic, including website content, passwords, and email attachments. It can also use “deep packet inspection” to extract metadata from encrypted traffic and predict if it’s going through a VPN.
If the system cannot distinguish the content of encrypted traffic, it can flag and block it as suspicious.
Deployment:
The system has already been installed in various countries, including integration with mobile carriers and nationwide data-collection systems in some.
Kazakhstan: TSG clusters were revealed in 17 cities.
Ethiopia: The system was used to actively block content during nationwide protests in February 2023, right before social media blackouts and internet shutdowns occurred.
Myanmar: Geedge’s equipment was installed in every single ISP in the country, and over 55 apps were marked “high priority” for takedown, including Signal and WhatsApp.
It’s also been used in Pakistan and an unidentified country marked as “A24.”
The Brussels Effect: Europe and Beyond 🇪🇺
» UK Arrests Protesters Over Trump-Epstein Projection at Windsor Castle
Four members of the UK political campaign group Led By Donkeys were arrested after projecting images and documents linking Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein onto Windsor Castle ahead of the U.S. president’s state visit.
Details:
The projection featured images of Trump with Epstein, a letter allegedly sent by Trump, clips of Epstein’s victims, and police reports.
Police charged the activists with “malicious communications” after what they called an “unauthorised projection.”
Led By Donkeys said this was the first time members of the group had been arrested for one of their projections, calling the action “peaceful protest” and the arrests “Orwellian.”
Ashley Haek is a communications coordinator and research assistant at The Future of Free Speech.
Ava Sjursen is a communications intern at The Future of Free Speech and a student at Boston College studying communications and political science.
Ashkhen Kazaryan is a Senior Legal Fellow at The Future of Free Speech, where she leads initiatives to protect free expression and shape policies that uphold the First Amendment in the digital age.
Jacob Mchangama is the Executive Director of The Future of Free Speech and a research professor at Vanderbilt University. He is also a senior fellow at The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and the author of Free Speech: A History From Socrates to Social Media.
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