X’s Brazilian offices will be closed “immediately” amid an escalating public feud between Elon Musk and Brazilian Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes.
“Last night, Alexandre de Moraes threatened his legal representative in Brazil with arrest if he did not comply with the censorship order,” XGlobal’s Government Relations Office announced in a post on its platform. “He did this with secret orders, which we share here to shed light on his actions.”
The social media platform remains accessible to Brazilian residents, according to the company’s post, which also included a screenshot of a legal order from Brazil’s National High Court, which, as Reuters reported, threatened fines of 20,000 reais ($3,653) per day and an arrest warrant for X’s president, Rachel Nova Conceição, if the company did not comply with orders to remove certain content on Moraes’ platform.
De Moraes said he was particularly targeting content posted by “digital militias” that are systematically spreading fake news and hate messages about far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro.
Like the United States, Brazil’s constitution protects speech, but the Brazilian government has broader discretion than the U.S. government to ban certain types of speech, including hate speech.
“Despite our multiple appeals to the Supreme Court going unheard, the Brazilian public not being informed of these orders, and our Brazilian staff having no responsibility or control over whether content is blocked on our platform, Moraes has chosen to intimidate our staff in Brazil rather than respect the law or due process,” the statement from X’s Global Government Affairs office continued.
Musk and De Moraes have been in a public battle for months over the takedown requests, with De Moraes pressuring the platform to block accounts that allegedly spread fake news and made threats against Brazil’s Supreme Court under President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration, threatening to fine the platform roughly $20,000 a day for each blocked account that was reinstated.
X initially agreed to block the accounts following a legal order in Brazil, which followed similar content moderation requests by Turkey that the platform had previously agreed to respect.
But despite de Moraes’ threats of fines and further legal action, Musk later lifted the restrictions on his Brazilian accounts, and de Moraes launched an investigation into Musk himself in April. Musk said at the time that the move would “probably result in the loss of all revenue in Brazil and the forced closure of our Brazilian offices, but principles trump profits.”
On Saturday, as news of the office closure broke, Musk posted: “The decision to close our 𝕏 office in Brazil was difficult, but if we had agreed to Alexandre’s (illegal) covert inspection and request to hand over personal information, there would have been no way to explain our actions without embarrassment.”
Representatives for X and Brazil’s National Supreme Court did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s requests for comment.
