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Elon Musk's X ceases operations in Brazil after bitter legal battle | Social Media News

The social media platform announces its shutdown with “immediate effect,” but Brazilian users will still be able to access X.

Social media giant X has announced it will cease operations in Brazil following a legal dispute with a top Brazilian judge over the platform's rights and obligations in combating disinformation.

The platform formerly known as Twitter said on Saturday that the shutdown was “effective immediately” but that Brazilian users would still have access to X.

“We are deeply saddened to have been forced to make this decision,” the company said, adding that responsibility for the decision lies “solely” with the Brazilian Supreme Court Justice, Alexandre de Moraes.

The move appears to be the culmination of an ongoing legal battle between Moraes, who says he is trying to combat the spread of disinformation online, and Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X.

Earlier this year, Moraes ordered X to block certain accounts accused of spreading false news and hate speech, including some belonging to supporters of former far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro repeatedly spread false claims that Brazil's electronic voting system was vulnerable to fraud ahead of the hotly contested 2022 elections.

Months after his defeat to left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a mob of Bolsonaro's supporters stormed the South American country's highest state institutions in anger over the result.

“Freedom of expression does not mean freedom to aggression,” said Moraes, the president of Brazil’s Supreme Electoral Court.

“It is not freedom to defend tyranny.”

On Saturday, X claimed that Moraes secretly threatened one of the company's legal representatives in Brazil with arrest if the company did not comply with a court order to remove certain content from its platform.

The social media giant published images of a document allegedly signed by Moraes, which stated that X representative Rachel Nova Conceicao would face a daily fine of 20,000 reais ($3,653) and an arrest warrant if the platform did not fully comply with Moraes' orders.

Brazil's Supreme Court told Reuters it would not comment on the matter and would neither confirm nor deny the authenticity of the document shared by X.

In a separate social media post on Saturday, Musk called Moraes “a complete disgrace to the justice system.”

“The decision to close the X office in Brazil was a difficult one,” Musk said, adding that if the company had agreed to the judge's orders, “there is no way we would have been able to explain our actions without being embarrassed.”

Moraes launched an investigation into the billionaire earlier this year after Musk said he would reactivate the X accounts that had been blocked by the judge's order.

Following Musk's objections, X's representatives changed course and told Brazil's Supreme Court that the social media giant would comply with the legal decisions.

Lawyers representing X in Brazil told the Supreme Court in April that “operational errors” had allowed users who had been ordered blocked to remain active on the platform, after Moraes asked X to explain why the company had allegedly not fully complied with its decisions.

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