X, the former Twitter, has its days numbered in Brazil, one of its largest markets in the world. Brazil’s most famous and powerful judge, Alexandre de Moraes, a symbol of the defense of democracy and a crusader against disinformation, ordered this Friday that the popular social network’s activity be immediately suspended due to “repeated non-compliance with court orders,” according to the court decision. The Supreme Court magistrate’s forceful measure represents the culmination of the public and legal battle that he has been maintaining for months with Elon Musk, owner of X and one of the richest men in the world. The businessman refuses to block six user profiles from the Bolsonarist orbit with the argument that the judge is “a dictator” who wants to censor them.
Moraes accuses the tech magnate of “wanting to establish an environment of total impunity and lawlessness on Brazilian social networks” with an eye on the Brazilian municipal elections, scheduled for October. He argues in the ruling ordering the closure that there is “an imminent risk” that “extremist groups and digital militias will continue and expand the instrumentalization of X Brasil with the mass dissemination of Nazi, racist, fascist, hateful and anti-democratic speeches.”
The judge also ordered that anyone who accesses X through a VPN device (which serves to camouflage the country from which the Internet user enters) be fined.
Musk and Moraes are engaged in a very public battle over one of the key issues of our era of increasingly polarized societies: where to place the limits on freedom of expression, how to combat hate speech and disinformation.
With 22 million users, it is still one of the most used social networks in Brazil, especially by politicians and journalists. Brazilian Internet users are among the most active in the world, they spend many hours a day surfing the web and are a very lucrative market. But this is not the first time that a Brazilian judge has tried to stop the technology companies. In 2015, WhatsApp was temporarily suspended. And last year, Telegram.
The order to suspend X is not a surprise. It was expected since the 24-hour deadline given by the judge to Musk’s company to appoint a legal representative in Brazil, as required by law, expired on Thursday at 8:07 p.m. For the authorities, this intermediary is essential for communicating with the company.
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