On Aug. 31, the decision was made to shut down X’s (formerly Twitter) Brazil servers. This was due to Elon Musk’s failure to appoint a legal representative in Brazil before the deadline set by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.
De Moraes ordered the “immediate, complete and total suspension of X’s operations” in Brazil “until all court orders … are complied with, fines are duly paid, and a new legal representative for the company is appointed.”
Musk has been involved in an ongoing case involving free speech and misinformation in Brazil for the past few months as his alleged lack of action against hate speech on his platform is in violation of Brazil’s “Fake News Bill.”
The “Fake News Bill” is a pending bill intended to “fight the spread of disinformation, including fake news, in social networks and messaging apps.” This bill, along with the current controversy surrounding Musk and X, is seen as too restrictive by many.
A court order from de Moraes required Musk to remove X accounts that allegedly promote misinformation, “fake news” and hate speech. Musk refused to remove these accounts as doing do would “crush the people’s right to free speech.”
After the deadline had passed, ANATEL, Brazil’s telecom regulator, suspended access to X in compliance to this court order.
Over 40 million Brazilian X users will no longer have access to the platform and will face fines up to 50,000 reais, or $9,000 USD, if they are caught using an encrypted connection. However, these fines may be reviewed as the Brazilian Bar Association argued that fines need to be applied with due process.
