Brazil's Supreme Court threatens to suspend X until Thursday evening

BRASILIA/SAO PAULO, Aug 29 (Reuters) – A judge in Brazil’s Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered billionaire Elon Musk to appoint a legal representative for his messaging platform X in Brazil within 24 hours or face the site being blocked in the country.

Earlier this month, X announced it would close its operations in Brazil and lay off its staff due to “censorship orders” from Judge Alexandre de Moraes. However, the service will remain available to users in Brazil, it said.

At the time, X claimed that Moraes had secretly threatened one of the company’s legal representatives in Brazil with arrest if the company did not comply with a court order to remove certain content from its platform.

In his ruling on Wednesday, Moraes said companies that do not respect Brazilian law or the confidentiality of private information could be temporarily suspended from their activities, under Brazilian legislation regulating internet issues.

The Supreme Court posted a screenshot of Wednesday’s court decision on its X account, tagging Musk and X’s Global Government Affairs accounts.

Hours after the judge’s decision, Musk said on X that Moraes had “repeatedly broken the laws he swore to uphold.”

Earlier this year, Moraes ordered X to block certain accounts involved in investigations into so-called “digital militias” accused of spreading fake news and hate speech during the government of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro.

After Musk challenged this decision and declared that he would reactivate the X accounts that had been blocked by the judge, Moraes launched an investigation against the billionaire in early April.

Representatives of X eventually reversed course and told the Supreme Court that the social media giant would comply with the legal rulings. However, in April, Moraes asked X to explain why the company allegedly did not fully comply with its rulings.

X’s lawyers then explained to the Supreme Court in Brazil that “operational errors” had allowed banned users to remain active on the social media platform.

Musk called Moraes’ decisions regarding X “unconstitutional.”

Topics such as “Twitter will end,” “Elon Musk,” and “Alexandre de Moraes” trended on X in Brazil on Thursday, with hundreds of thousands of posts. The public reaction consisted mainly of “memes” making light of the situation.

More serious reactions included some X users harshly criticizing Moraes’ decisions, saying he was undermining freedom of speech in Brazil, while other users sided with Moraes and said Musk should not be above Brazilian law.

X, formerly Twitter, is widely used in Brazil and is an important means of communication, especially for politicians.

Reporting by Ricardo Brito in Brasilia and Luana Maria Benedito in Sao Paulo; Writing by Andre Romani and Luana Maria Benedito; Editing by Brendan O’Boyle and Angus MacSwan

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Brazil’s Supreme Court threatens to suspend X until Thursday evening

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