X braced for Brazil ban as judge’s deadline passes
X, formerly Twitter, has announced that it anticipates being blocked in Brazil after missing a deadline to appoint a new legal representative for the company.
Earlier this month, the social media platform closed its office in Brazil, citing threats of arrest against its representative for not complying with what it called “censorship” demands.
The dispute began in April when Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered the suspension of numerous X accounts for allegedly disseminating disinformation.
X owner Elon Musk has threatened to reactivate these accounts and has criticized Justice Moraes as a “tyrant” and a “dictator.”
Justice Moraes gave X 24 hours to appoint a new legal representative or face suspension, with the deadline set just after 20:00 local time (23:00 GMT) on Thursday.
The order specified that the ban would remain until X appoints a representative in Brazil and pays fines for alleged breaches of Brazilian law.
In a post from one of its official accounts shortly after the deadline passed, X indicated that it had not met the order’s requirements.
“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,” the post read.
“The fundamental issue at stake here is that Judge de Moraes demands we break Brazil’s laws. We simply won’t do that.”
X said it would not comply “in secret with illegal orders”, adding that it would publish the judge’s demands in the coming days “in the interests of transparency”.
Justice Moraes had ordered that X accounts accused of spreading disinformation – many supporters of the former right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro – must be blocked while they are under investigation. He said the company’s legal representatives would be held liable if any accounts were reactivated.
Meanwhile, the bank accounts of Mr Musk’s satellite internet firm Starlink have been frozen in Brazil following an order by the country’s Supreme Court.
Starlink responded with a post on X which said the “order is based on an unfounded determination that Starlink should be responsible for the fines levied – unconstitutionally – against X.”
Mr Musk also said on X that “SpaceX and X are two completely different companies with different shareholders.”
Starlink is a subsidiary of Mr Musk’s rocket firm SpaceX.
In 2022, the government of then-President Bolsonaro gave Starlink the green light to operate in Brazil.
As South America’s largest country, Brazil and its remote regions in the Amazon have huge potential for Starlink, which specialises in providing internet services to isolated areas.
Justice Moraes gained prominence after his decisions to restrict social media platforms in the country.
He is also investigating Mr Bolsonaro and his supporters for their roles in an alleged attempted coup on 8 January last year.
X is not the first social media company to come under pressure from authorities in Brazil.
Last year, Telegram was temporarily banned over its failure to cooperate with requests to block certain profiles.
Meta’s messaging service Whatsapp also faced temporary bans in 2015 and 2016 for refusing to comply with police requests for user data.
