MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

De Moraes orders X banned from Brazil

X was expecting De Moraes' ban, the company admitted in a statement

Brazilian Supreme Federal Court (STF) Justice Alexandre De Moraes Friday ordered the suspension of South African tycoon Elon Musk's social media platform X after the company refused to comply with his order to appoint a legal representative. The US Embassy in Brasilia said it was closely monitoring the latest events.

“The oppressive regime in Brazil is so afraid of the people learning the truth that they will bankrupt anyone who tries,” the businessman wrote on X. “Free speech is the bedrock of democracy and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes,” he added.

Musk had already decided to leave Brazil after De Moraes ordered him to ban certain users under investigation regarding the Jan. 8, 2023, events in Brasilia, in addition to supplying some confidential data. The businessman also said he had no intention of breaking Brazilian law, which is what he claimed De Moraes was doing and his fellow justices on the STF were not preventing him from. He also described the magistrate as a “dictator cosplaying as a judge” and a “disgrace to the robe.”

De Moraes' deadline for the appointment expired at 8.07 pm Thursday. Earlier Friday, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in a radio broadcast that it was not admissible that Musk went about disrespecting Brazil's institutions just because he was wealthy.

It will be now up to Brazil's National Telecommunications Agency Anatel to comply with the magistrate's ruling within the next 24 hours. In addition, operators will also have to block the use of VPNs by users who try to circumvent the suspension which shall remain in force until decided otherwise, for which all fines must have been paid beforehand.

In justifying X's suspension, De Moraes cited the Brazilian Civil Rights Framework for the Internet and said that internet companies must have representation in Brazil and comply with court decisions on the removal of content considered illegal. He also argued that Musk withdrew the company from Brazil to avoid complying with the STF's decisions. “The illicit and fraudulent purpose of this closure of the national company was confessed in the very message made on social networks, which is: to continue failing to comply with orders from the Brazilian Judiciary, especially from this Supreme Court,” De Moraes was quoted by Agencia Brasil as saying.

He also ordered a daily fine of R$ 50,000 (nearly US$ 9,000) for individuals and companies that use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to escape restrictions on suspended websites. The judge also said that two of X's bank accounts in Brazil had been blocked on Aug. 18 after his first rulings were disregarded by the social network.

After De Moraes' decision, the hashtag “#O TWITTER MORREU” went viral on X. Twitter is the name the platform went by before being bought over by Musk. The company was already expecting the ban. “Soon, we expect Justice Alexandre De Moraes to order the blocking of X in Brazil, simply because we did not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents,” said the company in a statement.

De Moraes had already launched a probe against Musk back in April for reactivating accounts previously suspended by order of Brazilian courts. The judge had already threatened to incarcerate X's representative in the country but after Musk's withdrawal, he needed another victim to threaten. The judge also froze bank accounts belonging to Starlink (SpaceX) in a move to collect the fines from Musk, who also owns that company but only has 40% stock. He thus explained that De Moraes' decision had affected the assets and interests of other shareholders in no way connected to X, which is estimated to have over 22 million users in Brazil.

X is not the first social network ever to be banned in Brazil. Telegram was temporarily blocked on two occasions, in 2022 and 2023, for refusing to comply with court orders. Telegram's CEO Pavel Durov was arrested last weekend in France, where prosecutors believe him to be an accomplice to crimes committed by offenders who used Telegram in the process.