On Wednesday, Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered billionaire Elon Musk to name a legal representative in Brazil for his messaging platform X within 24 hours, or the site would be suspended in the country. Earlier this month, X announced it would shut down X in Brazil in response to what Musk called a “censorship order” from Judge Alexandre de Moraes. X had said its service would remain available to Brazilian users.
what is the matter
➡️ @STF_oficial summons Elon Musk and X to appoint a legal representative within 24 hours, under penalty of suspension of activities in Brazil ⚖️ https://t.co/SV21xQcJue
— STF (@STF_oficial) August 28, 2024
X claimed that Moraes had secretly threatened to arrest a legal representative of the company if the objectionable content was not removed from the platform immediately.
What did the court say?
Last night, Alexandre de Moraes threatened our legal representative in Brazil with arrest if we do not comply with his censorship orders. He did so in a secret order, which we share here to expose his actions.
Despite our numerous appeals to the Supreme Court not being heard,… pic.twitter.com/Pm2ovyydhE
— Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) August 17, 2024
In Wednesday’s order, Moraes said that under the country’s internet-related law, companies that do not respect Brazilian law or the privacy of personal information could have their activities temporarily suspended. The Supreme Court posted a screenshot of Wednesday’s court decision on its X account, tagging Musk and X’s Global Government Affairs accounts.
Soon, we expect Judge Alexandre de Moraes will order X to be shut down in Brazil – simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents. These enemies include a duly elected Senator and a 16-year-old girl, among others.
When we attempted…
— Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) August 29, 2024
Elon Musk’s response
Alexandre de Moraes is an evil dictator cosplaying as a judge. https://t.co/ZIV8KbDCmk
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 30, 2024
Hours after the judge’s ruling, Musk said on X that Moraes was “repeatedly breaking the laws he swore to uphold.” Earlier this year, Moraes ordered X to block accounts that were involved in an investigation into so-called “digital militias” accused of spreading fake news and hate messages during the reign of former President Jair Bolsonaro.
When Elon Musk challenged that decision and said he would reactivate the accounts the judge had ordered blocked, Moraes launched an investigation against the billionaire in early April.
Lawyers argued on behalf of X
Representatives of X told the Supreme Court that social media platform X would comply with the legal decisions. However, in April, Moraes asked X why it had allegedly not fully complied with their decisions. In response, lawyers fighting the case on behalf of X in Brazil told the Supreme Court that the accounts it had asked to be blocked could not be blocked due to operational flaws.
Elon Musk called it unconstitutional
Musk has called Moraes’ decisions related to X unconstitutional. On Thursday, topics such as “the end of Twitter”, “Elon Musk” and “Alexander de Moraes” were trending on X in Brazil, with millions of posts.
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