X waits for blocking "coming soon" in Brazil

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes had asked Musk to indicate “within 24 hours the name and qualification of X’s new legal representative in Brazil.” Failure to comply would lead to the “immediate suspension of the social network’s activities,” the high court said Wednesday evening on its account on X itself.

In response, Musk posted on X that “this judge has repeatedly violated the laws he swore to uphold.” The hashtag “O TWITTER MORREU” (“Twitter died”) quickly went viral on the platform.

Musk, who also founded Tesla and SpaceX, accused Moraes, whom he has called a “dictator,” on August 19 of threatening his employees with prison, and announced the immediate closure of X’s operations in Brazil.

The company said it was closing its operations in the South American giant due to the judge’s actions but was keeping the service available to Brazilians.

The government of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva criticized X’s decision. The company has been locked in a dispute with Brazil’s Supreme Court in recent years.

Moraes ordered the blocking of accounts of influential figures from Brazilian ultraconservative movements, mainly since the attempts by supporters of the far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro, an admirer of Musk, to discredit the electronic voting system during the presidential elections won by Lula.

In April, X admitted that users of several blocked accounts had managed to bypass the restrictions. Musk accuses Moraes of wanting to “censor” the platform.

The tycoon is also the subject of a Brazilian justice investigation into “digital militias,” which points to the alleged illegal use of public resources by Bolsonaro and his inner circle to orchestrate online disinformation campaigns during his presidency (2019-2022).

With information from AFP.