Popular microblogging site, X, which was formerly known as Twitter, said that it would close its operations in Brazil “effective immediately”. It has blamed “censorship orders” by Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes for this unexpected step.
According to X, which was founded by Jack Dorsey, and is now owned by billionaire Elon Musk, Moraes secretly threatened one of the company’s legal representatives in Brazil with arrest if the company did not comply with legal orders to take down some content from its platforms.
“As a result, to protect the safety of our staff, we have made the decision to close our operation in Brazil, effective immediately. The X service remains available to the people of Brazil,” said the company.
“Last night, Alexandre de Moraes threatened our legal representative in Brazil with arrest if we do not comply with his censorship orders. He did so in a secret order, which we share here to expose his actions. Despite our numerous appeals to the Supreme Court not being heard, the Brazilian public not being informed about these orders and our Brazilian staff having no responsibility or control over whether content is blocked on our platform, Moraes has chosen to threaten our staff in Brazil rather than respect the law or due process,” it said in a social media post on the platform.
X stated that the “responsibility lies solely” with Moraes, and that his actions are incompatible with a democratic government. “The people of Brazil have a choice to make - democracy, or Alexandre de Moraes,” it said.
The social media giant also published pictures of a document, allegedly signed by Moraes, that says a daily fine of $3,653 and an arrest decree would be impost against X representative Rachel Nova Conceicao if the platform did not fully comply to Moraes' orders.
“Due to demands by “Justice” @Alexandre in Brazil that would require us to break (in secret) Brazilian, Argentinian, American and international law, X has no choice but to close our local operations in Brazil. He is an utter disgrace to justice,” said Elon Musk in one of his many posts about shutting operations in Brazil. “No question that Moraes needs to leave. Having a “justice” who repeatedly and egregiously violates the law is no justice at all,” he said in another post.
“The decision to close the X 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,” he said.
Earlier this year, Moraes ordered X to block certain accounts as part of an investigation into 'digital militias' accused of spreading fake news and hate messages during the tenure of former President Jair Bolsonaro. Moraes started an inquiry into Musk after he announced plans to reactivate accounts on X that were previously blocked by Moraes. Musk has labelled Moraes' decisions regarding X as 'unconstitutional.' Following Musk's objections, representatives of X informed Brazil's Supreme Court that they would adhere to the legal rulings. In April, lawyers for X told the Supreme Court that 'operational faults' had allowed users, who were ordered blocked, to remain active on the platform. This statement was made in response to Moraes' request for an explanation on the alleged non-compliance.