There are signs that service for X, the former Twitter, could be restarted in Brazil three weeks after a Brazilian judge shut down the social network on August 30. Within hours, 22 million users were banned from the Twitter universe and the company lost one of its biggest markets. Elon Musk, the tech mogul who owns X, has given in to a standoff with Judge Alexandre de Moraes who accuses the network of failing to curb hate speech and misinformation. The billionaire, turned cheerleader for the global far right, has begun to comply with the decisions he previously boycotted, culminating in the suspension of X.
The company appointed a legal representative in Brazil late last Friday and has also begun blocking a series of profiles in the Bolsonarist orbit, according to the company itself, reports Reuters. X thus takes steps to end a resistance that has lasted for months during which he has systematically disobeyed Judge Moraes. The businessman proclaimed by land, sea and air that the judicial decisions of the powerful Supreme Court judge were mere attempts at censorship signed by a dictatorial judge.
After receiving these notifications, Moraes, a member of the Supreme Court and the most admired and hated judge in Brazil, gave himself five days from Saturday 21st to calculate the judicial fines that X has accumulated in recent months, and to make sure that the rest of the required bureaucratic procedures are in order. Brazil has a very powerful bureaucratic apparatus which means that there is almost always some pending procedure or stamp to be put on some form.
Musk appears to have begun to give in days after an incident that angered the judge. Last Wednesday, some Brazilian Twitter users suddenly realized that they could log into X, and that their posts were being updated. The news spread like wildfire through countless WhatsApp groups, but many of those who tried were unable to tweet again. The company later said it was an involuntary return, motivated, it explained, by a change of network provider.
Lawyer Rachel de Oliveira Villa Nova Conceição resumes the task she already performed as the company’s legal representative until, in August, the judge ordered her arrest for failing to comply with orders to block profiles that incite hatred. Musk then responded with a challenge: he fired his 40 employees in Brazil, closed his offices and from his X account he declared himself the victim of judicial persecution against ideological rivals, the discourse with which Bolsonarism turned the judge into its bête noire years ago. Dozens of Bolsonarists, summoned by former president Jair Bolsonaro, demonstrated two weeks ago in São Paulo to demand his dismissal.
Orphaned Brazilian Twitter users immediately sought alternative spaces to comment on current events, to circulate memesfind an audience for their news or business and for entertainment. Bluesky, created by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, among others, has seen massive migration. Since the closure of X in Brazil, it has gained more than three million users, so that last week it reached 10 million while Portuguese is quickly becoming one of the most widely used languages.
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