X after Telegram. Brazil after France. Elon Musk after Pavel Durov. This is the second time in a week that a foreign government has cracked down on a social media platform. First came the announcement of the arrest, upon his arrival in France, of Durov, the ‘father’ of Telegram, with six charges filed against him in relation to illicit activities on the app. Brazil’s Supreme Court orders suspension of X in an escalation of a months-long dispute with Musk over the limits of free speech in an era — as the Washington Post writes — gripped by polarization and misinformation.
The Durov case is an attack on freedom of expression, says Musk. Now the decision by Judge Alexandre de Moraes affects more than 20 million X users in Brazil, the platform’s fourth-largest market.
The reasons for the measure
The order for X came after Musk refused to comply with a request from Moraes to re-establish a physical presence in Brazil.. Moraes, who is at the forefront of the fight against disinformation, believes that X needs a representative in the country, with a population of 215 million, to respond to requests from authorities to suspend accounts accused of spreading fake news.
Musk refused because he believed that anyone appointed would be at risk of arrest. And Moraes responded by freezing Starlink’s bank accounts and giving them 24 hours to appoint a representative in Brazil. That deadline expired Thursday night, when X said it considered Moraes’ orders to block some accounts “illegal” and claimed that, “unlike” other platforms, “it will not secretly comply with illegitimate orders.”
And on Friday came the suspension of X. “Freedom of expression is the foundation of democracy and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes,” Musk attacked after Moraes asked for the removal of accounts accused of undermining Brazilian institutions. Musk accused him of censorship. A debate that divides not only international observers, but also many in Brazil, where tens of millions of people use social media to discuss news and politics.
Moraes, in the battle against fake news and disinformation online, has ordered the removal of dozens of accounts on various social networks and issued arrest warrants for dozens of people. “Social media networks are a lawless land,” he wrote earlier this year in orders targeting X, accusing Musk of leading a “disinformation campaign” against the court.
Musk’s decisions
In the midst of the dispute, in mid-month, X had announced the closure of operations in Brazil after Moraes allegedly threatened to arrest the company’s legal representative for saying no to the closure of some accounts. But the service remained active. Until the provision arrived in which, according to the text obtained by the Post, Moraes orders the telecommunications agency and internet providers to block users’ access to X and to give Apple and Google five days to prevent downloads of the app. And anyone “caught” using a VPN to access X risks up to $9,000 in fines every day, Moraes warned. Today the block has become reality.
Musk returns to accuse Moraes of having broken the laws of the country by ordering. And the owner of X has promised that starting tomorrow morning he will begin to publish “the long list of crimes” that the magistrate has committed, with an indication of the “Brazilian laws that he has broken”.
“It is clear that he does not have to obey the laws of the United States, but those of his country,” Musk said in a series of posts on X, accusing the judge of being “a dictator and an impostor.” “The people of Brazil will learn of his crimes,” he insisted. “No matter how hard they try to prevent it.” And, he reiterated, “X is the most used news source in Brazil and that is what people want.”
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