On Friday, Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre De Moraes ordered social media platform X to be 'immediately suspended' in the country, citing the company's refusal to comply with a legal order to censor the judge's political opponents.
Moraes gave the country's telecom regulator, Anatel, 24 hours to shut down X. He also ordered Apple and Google to block the use of the app and remove it from their app stores within five days.
The shutdown comes after a Thursday post from X's global government affairs account, which said that it would "not comply in secret with illegal orders," and said that it would publish Moraes' demands and related court documents for transparency.
When we attempted to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts. Our challenges against his manifestly illegal actions were either dismissed or ignored. Judge de Moraes’ colleagues on the Supreme Court are either unwilling or unable to stand up to him.
We are absolutely not insisting that other countries have the same free speech laws as the United States. The fundamental issue at stake here is that Judge de Moraes demands we break Brazil’s own laws. We simply won’t do that.
What's more, Moraes has also threatened Brazilians who use a VPN to access X with a fine equivalent to US$8,900.
"Elon Musk showed his total disrespect for Brazilian sovereignty and, in particular, for the judiciary, setting himself up as a true supranational entity and immune to the laws of each country," Moraes wrote in his order, which dictates that X will remain suspended in Brazil until all related court orders were complied with - including the payment of more than $3 million in fines, as well as the designation of a local representative as required by Brazilian law.
That said, Moraes may be in hot water with the Brazilian BAR association (OAB) - which is investigating the daily fines against users accessing X.
"It is necessary that the measures occur within constitutional and legal limits, ensuring individual freedoms," said OAB President Beto Simonetti. "The application of a fine or any sanction can only occur after the deaftory and the broad defense assured – never in a prior and summary way."
Musk has been very active with posts on X regarding the matter:
"� is the most used news source in Brazil. It is what the people want. Now, the tyrant de Voldemort is crushing the people’s right to free speech." Musk wrote on Saturday.
Meanwhile:
To be continued...