LEAVING BRAZIL
On August 17, the profile of Global Government Relations of the X announced that it would close its office in Brazil, but stated that the social network would remain available to Brazilians. In the publication, the company states that the measure was taken because of Moraes’ decisions.
The platform released the full text of the minister’s decision, which is being processed under confidentiality. Here is the file (PDF – 393 kB) of the released images.
In the document, it is possible to read that Moraes requested the blocking of profiles that published messages “antidemocratic” or with hateful content against authorities – it is not clear how this would have been configured as an infraction of Brazilian law.
The company, however, reportedly did not comply with the orders. The judge then increased the fine and gave 24 hours to freeze the accounts, under penalty of arrest for disobeying the court order. He also ordered the arrest of Rachel de Oliveira Villa Nova Conceição. “for disobedience to a court order”. Rachel de Oliveira is cited as “representative” of X in Brazil.
“Despite our numerous appeals to the Brazilian Supreme Court having gone unheard, the Brazilian public not having been informed of these orders, and our Brazilian team having no responsibility or control over the blocking of content on our platform, Moraes chose to threaten our team in Brazil instead of respecting the law or due process.”, declared X.
Musk, critical of the actions of Minister Alexandre de Moraes, shared the statement and said that “he is a total disgrace to justice.”
How will the X suspension work in Brazil?
Although Moraes gave 24 hours to comply from the date of the summons, the social network did not automatically go offline on Thursday (August 29), as there is a procedure for this. Understand:
- the STF forwards the judicial blocking order to Anatel;
- Anatel passes this order on to all internet operators in the country. There are more than 20,000 fixed broadband providers and around 30 mobile network providers;
- The operators then enforce the court order on their networks, blocking traffic routing to the social network.
Therefore, the blocking of the social network or any other website does not occur instantly, as if it were enough to turn off a button. It will also not be done at the same time for all Internet users in the country, as it depends on the agility of each operator in complying with the court decision.
The procedure is the same as that which already exists for complying with court decisions to block websites, profiles and platforms for publishing illegal content such as misinformation, pedophilia, racism, hate crimes and terrorism.
In the case of fake news related to the electoral process, there is a faster process: the TSE (Superior Electoral Court), instead of sending a judicial notification to Anatel, sends the information through an integrated system between the two institutions. This ensures faster removal of the content.
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