The social media giant claims that a top Brazilian judge threatened an employee with arrest
Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) has announced the suspension of operations in Brazil, citing the Brazilian Supreme Court’s alleged censorship orders, which the company refuses to comply with.
Earlier this year, Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the suspension of multiple accounts allegedly belonging to “digital militants” – a group of influential people associated with the right-wing former president, Jair Bolsonaro.
The group was accused of spreading disinformation about members of the Supreme Court. Musk threatened to “lift all restrictions,” arguing that the ruling represents “the most draconian demands of any country on Earth,” and called for the judge’s resignation.
In a statement published on the platform on Saturday, the X Global Government Affairs team claimed that Alexandre de Moraes, acting in secret, threatened a legal representative of the company with arrest if the social media giant did not adhere to the court orders. X also shared a picture of a document allegedly signed by Moraes, which stated that an arrest warrant would be issued against Rachel Nova Conceicao, in addition to a daily fine of 20,000 Brazilian reals ($3,650).
The decision to close the ???? office in Brazil was difficult, but, if we had agreed to @alexandre’s (illegal) secret censorship and private information handover demands, there was no way we could explain our actions without being ashamed.
“Moraes has chosen to threaten our staff in Brazil rather than respect the law or due process,” the post read. “As a result, to protect the safety of our staff, we have made the decision to close our operations in Brazil, effective immediately,” laying the blame “solely” on Moraes.
The company added that its services will still be available to Brazilian users.
Musk, who took control of Twitter in October 2022 and subsequently rebranded it as X, reposted the statement, blasting Moraes as an “utter disgrace to justice” and claiming that his orders “would require us to break (in secret) Brazilian, Argentinian, American, and international law.” He explained in a later post that the decision to close the office was made in response to “secret censorship and private information handover demands.”
The Brazilian Supreme Court declined to comment on the matter, stating that it would neither confirm nor deny the authenticity of the document presented by X. Moraes previously warned the platform against “disobeying judicial orders,” saying “social networks are not lands without laws.”
