Brazilian Judge Orders Suspension Of X In Brazil Following A Squabble With Elon Musk

A Brazilian judge of the Supreme Court orders the suspension of X in Brazil on Friday after a feud with the tech billionaire, Elon Musk. The squabble occurred when Elon Musk refused to name a legal representative within the country based on the copy of the decision generated by the Associated Press.

The fight intensified when the arguments took a flight to freedom of speech, the rights of account handling, and misinformation.

What Brazilian judge was concerned about

The Brazilian judge, Justice Alexandre de Moraes warned Elon Musk on Wednesday night about the suspension of X. Musk failed to comply with the orders to name his representative within the given 24-hour deadline.

The judge told that the application would remain suspended unless the tech CEO gave the name of a legal representative despite having warned since the early days of this month.

Musk’s response

Musk responded immediately only to accuse the judge who was trying to destroy freedom of speech, according to him. Musk, till then, had not discussed the progress he was making about his legal representative, if any.

In an online post on X, Musk stated, “Free speech is the bedrock of democracy and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes. The oppressive regime in Brazil is so afraid of the people learning the truth that they will bankrupt anyone who tries”.

X market in Brazil

Brazil remains one of the prime user markets of X worldwide, however, after the purchase of Twitter in 2022 and changing the name to X, a huge loss of advertisers was observed in the country.

More than 40 million Brazilians, or up to one-fifth of the population, used X at least once a month, according to market research firm Emarketer.

Additionally, the official team of X had posted on the Global Government Affairs page in the late hours of Thursday that it was expected that the Brazilian judge would shut down X just because the company does not comply with their “illegal orders” related to censorship of political adversaries.

The team of X’s story

The team of X has a different story to tell since they are of the view that the judge ordered a suspension when Elon Musk refused to comply with the orders to block users. The team’s challenge to the judge’s illegal manifestation was ignored.

Even though the legal representative of X in Brazil tried to defend the company, the judge threatened her with imprisonment, later leading to the freezing of her bank accounts.

Moreover, the previous accounts that were shut down due to non-compliance include those of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s right-wing party and some activists in Brazil who caused threats to its democracy.  

Elon Musk repeated several times that the judge’s action instigated the suspension of X as he was being forced to do illegal things. The argument escalated between the two and it went on to the insult of the judge by Musk. Musk called him a ‘dictator’ and ‘tyrant’.

The judge’s supporters defended him

The supporters of the judge defended him saying that his actions were only related to the order to have a legal representative within the country so that new notifications from the court could be generated to them whenever something about legal cases came up.

They notified that this step was necessary when the country was going through imperiled times and the security of democracy was their top priority.

A 12-hour suspension

The coordinator of the Technology and Society Center at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, Luca Belli, informed that X might remain suspended for 12 hours after the instructions were received from the judge. This is assumed to be another time frame that the judge could have given to Elon Musk to come back with a legal representative.