Today, after a month of suspension, X is available again in Brazil. The platform had been suspended since late August after a clash with the country’s Supreme Court in which X rejected a court order to remove certain right-wing accounts and content that the Court said violated Brazilian law. After weeks of failing to deliver, it appears Elon Musk has relented.
Alexandre, judge of the Supreme Court of Brazil authorized the return of after the company blocked profiles accused of spreading false information, reappointed a legal representative in the country and paid fines that amounted to R$ 28.6 million (5.1 million dollars).
X issued a statement on his platform, saying he is “proud to return to Brazil.” “Giving tens of millions of Brazilians access to our indispensable platform was paramount throughout this process,” the statement read. “We will continue to defend freedom of expression, within the limits of the law, everywhere we operate.”
“I think what he saw in the end was that he had no choice,” says Nina Santos, a digital democracy researcher at Brazil’s National Institute of Science and Technology who researches the Brazilian far-right. “And besides, people in Brazil were starting to not care.”
Shortly after Musk took control of what was formerly Twitter in October 2022, the company received a consent decree from the Brazilian court, threatening a ban if it did not follow through on its commitments to reduce misinformation and disinformation related to Twitter. elections during the country’s presidential race. off. According to employees who spoke to WIRED at the time, trust and security staff were able to convince Musk to maintain Twitter’s security policies and barriers. But less than two weeks later, Musk dismissed more than half of the company, including most of the company’s trusted and security personnel.
Musk’s “free speech absolutism” also meant the company accounts reinstated which had previously been banned. At the same time, the company reversed moderation, allowing misinformation and hate speech to proliferate on the platform.
In April, de Moraes served the company with an order to remove a select group of accounts and content that the court said spread disinformation about the country’s electoral system. (In 2023, after right-wing former president Jair Bolsonaro lost the election, his supporters stormed the Brazilian legislature.)
Musk rejected court orders and refused to remove the content. On August 19, X announced that it would close its offices in Brazil, meaning it would no longer have a representative in the country. Without someone designated to correspond with the government – and be legally responsible for the company’s decisions – Moraes issued an order to suspend the platform in Brazil. He also took aim at Musk’s other company, Starlink, saying it was part of the same “economic group” and pointing to the Company with 2 million dollars in fines. after Musk initially said Starlink would not block X.
Musk eventually relented and Starlink complied with the court order. Meanwhile, route traffic through Cloudfare—which the company said was “inadvertent”—although that road was also quickly closed. Last week, the company said it had appointed a legal representative in the country and was submitting paperwork to get back online. Once X paid $5 million in court-imposed fines, it was allowed to resume operations. The moment is critical; Brazil has several important local elections coming up in October.
“I think this is a victory for the court,” says Ivar Hartmann, associate professor of law at the Insper Institute of Education and Research in São Paulo. “For the Supreme Court, it will now be easier in the future to block Starlink accounts if X misbehaves again.”
But Hartmann says that as long as the company follows the law, continues to have legal representation and respects court orders, he sees no more problems. At least not for Musk. “The probability that (the legal representative) at some point will have an arrest warrant against him is not zero. It is a possibility,” he says. “And that’s why I hope they get paid a lot of money.”
Santos says he suspects that even if X violates court orders again, Starlink will at least be somewhat isolated, noting that the company provides Internet to many rural Brazilians. “It is much easier to live without X than with Starlink in Brazil,” says Santos.
