São Paulo, Brazil – Brazilian Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes on Friday ordered X (formerly Twitter) blocked across the country after billionaire Elon Musk, the platform’s owner, refused to comply with a court order to appoint a new legal representative. for X in Brazil.
The dispute began on August 17, when Musk announced the closure of X’s office in the country after refusing to comply with multiple orders by Justice Moraes to suspend posts and profiles that spread fake news and hate speech.
The next day, Moraes notified X’s lawyer and requested the appointment of a new legal representative. Since then, there has been no response from Musk and no Director X.
As a result, the judge decided to subpoena Musk via X on Wednesday, requiring him to appoint a legal representative in Brazil within 24 hours, under penalty of social media suspension. Musk refused to comply with the order and even mocked Moraes on his X profile, saying the judge should be jailed.
The deadline given by Moraes expired on Thursday evening and on Friday afternoon the order was issued to block entry to X throughout Brazil. The first step in this process was the notification of the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel), the federal agency responsible for telephone and Internet services in Brazil.
Anatel then notified all telecom operators instead of continuing with the block. The website went offline permanently around midnight this Saturday (Brazil time).
“Repeated, knowing and voluntary non-compliance with court orders and failure to pay daily fines (exceeding $3.6 million), in addition to attempts to evade Brazilian law and the judiciary, creating an environment of total impunity and ‘lawlessness’ in Brazilian social media. , including the 2024 city elections,” Moraes said in his decision.
Moraes’ ruling also includes a fine of R$50,000 (US$10,000) for any citizen or company that accesses X via VPN. This part of the ruling has been criticized by experts, who argue that the judge may have “went too far” and that banning VPNs could be considered a form of censorship, as there are people and companies who use such tools to work and to access some content abroad.
Musk spoke at X, criticizing Moraes’ decision, saying “free speech is the foundation of democracy and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes.”
Also this Friday, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva criticized the billionaire’s refusal to comply with court orders and said that having a lot of money does not put him above the law – otherwise, Brazil’s sovereignty would be at risk.
“Any citizen, from any part of the world, who has investments in Brazil, is subject to the Brazilian Constitution and Brazilian laws. If the Supreme Court has made a decision for a citizen to respect certain things, he will either respect them, or he will have to take another action,” said Lula.
