RIO DE JANEIRO – A Brazilian Supreme Court justice on Friday ordered the suspension of X in Latin America’s largest country, a dramatic escalation in a months-long dispute with platform owner Elon Musk over the limits of free speech in an era gripped by polarization and disinformation.
The order by Justice Alexandre de Moraes, which did not immediately take the site down, could affect more than 20 million X users in Brazil and deprive the platform of one of its largest and most active markets. The closely watched dispute has made Brazil – X’s fourth-largest market – a key venue in the global debate between free speech and disinformation, and has become central to Musk’s mission of making X a “free speech public square.”
It was the second time this week that a foreign government has clamped down on a social media platform. On Monday, French authorities said they had arrested Telegram founder and chief executive Pavel Durov in an investigation of illegal child abuse activity on the messaging app. Musk, among others, condemned Durov’s arrest as an attack on free speech; the future, he suggested, could include “being executed for liking a meme.”
The ruling on his own platform came after he declined to comply with a request by Moraes to reestablish a physical presence in Brazil. Moraes, one of the world’s most aggressive prosecutors of disinformation, says X needs a representative in this country of 215 million people to respond to government requests to suspend accounts found to be spreading fake news.
Musk refused, saying anyone he appointed would be exposed to the possibility of arrest. Moraes responded by freezing the bank accounts of Starlink, a satellite company owned by Musk and active in Brazil, and giving him 24 hours to name a representative in Brazil. Musk has said that entities from schools and hospitals to Brazil’s military depend on Starlink for internet service in the country – and he would seek to keep the service operational despite the freeze on its bank account.
“SpaceX will provide Internet service to users in Brazil for free until this matter is resolved, as we cannot receive payment, but don’t want to cut anyone off,” he said Thursday.
Starlink, which has more than a quarter-million customers in Brazil, and its owner SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.
The 24-hour deadline expired Thursday evening as Musk assailed the judge on X, calling him “an evil dictator cosplaying as a judge” who is “absolutely trying to destroy democracy in Brazil.” After Friday’s ruling, Musk said, “free speech is the bedrock of democracy and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes.
X said Thursday that it viewed Moraes’s orders to suspend accounts as “illegal” and it would publish them “in the coming days.”
“Unlike other social media and technology platforms, we will not comply in secret with illegal orders,” the company said in a statement.
In a post on X Friday, X CEO Linda Yaccarino said: “This is a sad day for X users around the world, especially those in Brazil, who are being denied access to our platform.”
Moraes, who is seen by supporters as defending Brazilian democracy, has demanded the removal of accounts that he has accused of undermining Brazil’s institutions. Disinformation about Brazil’s 2022 election helped fuel riots in Brasília by supporters of defeated President Jair Bolsonaro.
Musk has accused Moraes of censorship. The debate divides not only international observers, but many in Brazil, too, where tens of millions of people use social media to discuss news and politics.
Moraes has led probes into alleged fake news and anti-democratic disinformation online. He has ordered social media companies, including X, to remove scores of accounts and issued arrest warrants against dozens of individuals. In orders to X earlier this year, he wrote that “social media networks are not a lawless land” and accused Musk of waging a “disinformation campaign” against the court.
X said this month it was shuttering its operations here after Moraes allegedly threatened to arrest the company’s legal representative for refusing to shut down certain accounts. In a post on X, the company accused the judge of “censorship” and posted what the company said were his orders to “expose his actions.”
“Despite our numerous appeals to the Supreme Court not being heard, the Brazilian public not being informed about these orders and our Brazilian staff having no responsibility or control over whether content is blocked on our platform, Moraes has chosen to threaten our staff in Brazil rather than respect the law or due process,” X said. “As a result, to protect the safety of our staff, we have made the decision to close our operation in Brazil, effective immediately.”
The service has remained active. In Moraes’s order Friday, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, he directs Brazil’s telecommunications agency and internet providers to block users here from accessing X and gives Apple and Google five days to prevent downloads of its app.
Google declined to comment. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Moraes said anyone caught using a virtual private network to access the site could be fined nearly $9,000 a day.
Proton, a Swiss company behind a VPN that people use to circumvent government internet restrictions around the world, said the number of sign-ups in Brazil surged 1,200 percent Thursday compared with a typical day. Bluesky, an alternative to X, said in a post Friday it was setting all-time highs for activity on its platform.
The fight in Brazil has been central to Musk’s mission of making X “the free speech public square” in which users may say whatever they want without fear of being censored or banned. Since he took over the platform in October 2022, he has significantly weakened its content-moderation apparatus. He fired much of Twitter’s trust and safety team, loosened the site’s rules against hate speech, reinstated suspended accounts and lifted a ban on campaign advertising.
Musk has increasingly used his platform to promote his own right-leaning politics and, in the United States, the reelection of former president Donald Trump. Twitter banned Trump’s account, a venue for conspiracy theories, misinformation and lies, after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Musk, who renamed the platform X, restored the account about a month after he purchased it.
Musk endorsed Trump last month. He also live-streamed a two-hour conversation with Trump in which he was allowed to deliver false or misleading statements largely unchecked.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) sent a letter this month urging House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to investigate claims of bias on the platform after users reported difficulty following a campaign account of Vice President Kamala Harris. Accounts supporting Harris have been labeled as spam or restricted.
“Egregious falsehoods and conspiracy theories are becoming commonplace on X,” Nadler wrote. “While we may have significant disagreement over the degree and extent of content moderation, I hope that we can at least agree that enforcement on a major platform like X should be fair to both sides.”
(c) 2024, The Washington Post · Terrence McCoy, Trisha Thadani, Marina Dias
