says it is ending business operations in Brazil effective immediately, but that the service will remain available to users in the country. Alexandre de Moraes, the President of the Supreme Court and a judge at the Federal Supreme Court, threatened one of X’s lawyers with arrest if he did not “comply with his censorship orders.”
According to ReutersMoreas demanded that X remove certain content from its platform. Instead of complying, X chose to close its local operations “to protect the safety of our staff.”
According to X, De Moraes made the threat in a ‘secret order’, which he made public. that the demand “requires us to (secretly) violate Brazilian, Argentine, U.S. and international law.”
Last night, Alexandre de Moraes threatened our legal representative in Brazil with arrest if we did not comply with his censorship orders. He did this in a secret order, which we are sharing here to expose his actions.
Despite the fact that our numerous appeals to the Supreme Court have not been heard,… photo.twitter.com/Pm2ovyydhE
— Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) August 17, 2024
“Despite our numerous appeals to the Supreme Court not being heard, the Brazilian public not being informed of these orders, and our Brazilian staff having no responsibility or control over blocking content on our platform, Moraes has chosen to threaten our staff in Brazil rather than respect the law or due process,” X said in a statement on its Global Government Affairs account. “(De Moraes’) actions are incompatible with a democratic government. The people of Brazil have a choice to make: democracy or Alexandre de Moraes.”
Musk has been railing against Moraes for months. In April, he said he would ignore lawmakers’ orders to block certain accounts in Brazil, saying they were unconstitutional. In response, Moraes said against Musk. X it would comply with all orders of the highest Brazilian courts.
That same month, the House Judiciary Committee alleging that the Brazilian government attempted to force X (and other social media platforms) to censor more than 300 accounts. It said the accounts included those of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro, a member of the country’s federal senate and a journalist.
X does not have a PR team available for comment.
