X might soon lose access to Brazil, its third-largest market. The reason why is at the center of a long battle between billionaire Elon Musk and Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes De Moraes. The Justice is demanding several things from X and recently froze Starlink’s finances, and has threatened to shut down X in Brazil. He’s done similar things before.
“Alexandre de Moraes is an evil dictator cosplaying as a judge,” Musk said in a post on X of the Justice.
Alexandre de Moraes is an evil dictator cosplaying as a judge. https://t.co/ZIV8KbDCmk
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 30, 2024
The accusation that de Moraes is an evil dictator is the latest in a years-long barrage of attacks between Musk and the judge that culminated this week in de Moraes’ threat to block the site in Brazil. It’s also part of a years-long trend that’s seen the justice go to war with social media companies over regulation on their platforms and information he considers dangerous.
Musk and de Moraes have been going round and round, but the heart of this most recent dustup is X’s apparent failure to appoint a legal representative in the country to deal with de Moraes’ various requests. In Brazil, social media companies must have an official legal representative on hand for the government to deal with, even if they don’t have a physical presence in the country. In Brazil, a judge can order posts and accounts removed from sites and the country requires someone from the social media companies on hand to facilitate the requests.
On August 17, Musk said X would suspend operations in Brazil and withdraw its legal representative from the country saying that de Moraes had threatened to arrest her. On Wednesday night, de Moraes said that X needed to appoint a new representative or he’d shut down the site entirely. He’s done that kind of thing before. In 2022, the court blocked Telegram for 48 hours after it failed to comply with its requests.
Musk and X didn’t comply. On Thursday afternoon, Starlink—another Musk-owned company that does business in Brazil—announced that the country had frozen its bank accounts and it could no longer do business.
“This order is based on an unfounded determination that Starlink should be responsible for the fines levied—unconstitutionally—against X, a company that is unaffiliated with Starlink. It was issued in secret and without affording Starlink any of the due process of law guaranteed by the Constitution of Brazil,” Starlink said in a statement on its website on Thursday.
Brazil is an enormous and important market for all things Musk. More than 200 million people live there and roughly 40 million of them use X, making it the third-largest market for the site overall. It’s also a big market for Starink, which is probably why de Moraes chose that company as the place to apply pressure on Musk.
X’s Global Government Affairs account said it expected X to be shut down soon in a post on August 29. This was happening, it said, “simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents. These enemies include a duly elected Senator and a 16-year-old girl, among others.”
Soon, we expect Judge Alexandre de Moraes will order X to be shut down in Brazil – simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents. These enemies include a duly elected Senator and a 16-year-old girl, among others.
When we attempted…
— Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) August 29, 2024
“In the days to come, we will publish all of Judge de Moraes’ illegal demands and all related court filings in the interest of transparency,” it said. “Unlike other social media and technology platforms, we will not comply in secret with illegal orders.”
If you’re saying to yourself: “It sounds like they’re gearing up to do a ‘Twitter Files’ about Brazil,” you’re not wrong. But also, X already did that. In April, journalist Michael Shellenberger wrote a long Twitter thread labeled “TWITTER FILES – BRAZIL” that detailed the site’s complaints against De Moraes.
TWITTER FILES – BRAZIL
Brazil is engaged in a sweeping crackdown on free speech led by a Supreme Court justice named Alexandre de Moraes.
De Moraes has thrown people in jail without trial for things they posted on social media. He has demanded the removal of users from social…
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) April 3, 2024
The gist is that Twitter (and Shellenberger) accused de Moraes of attempting to undermine Brazilian democracy by exercising his extraordinary powers to censor political opponents. Here’s the thing: de Moraes has absolutely used his powers to shut down speech he sees as dangerous. His actions in the country have been reported on in the Brazilian version of The Intercept for years now. Brazil is very sensitive to the proliferation and dangers of fake news. Like the U.S., it went through its own election turmoil after Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ousted Jair Bolsonaro in 2023.
Bolsonaro supporters decried the election results, spread conspiracy theories online, and stormed the capital. For some in Brazil, the election was the culmination of an orchestrated effort by Bolsonaro who used “digital militias” to spread disinformation about the election and stir unrest.
The investigation and suppression of those “digital militias” has long been a goal of de Moraes for years now. In April, he announced that he’d expanded an ongoing investigation into the phenomenon to include both X and Musk.
As of this writing, X is still functioning in Brazil, but that could change at any moment as the battle between over the social media platform continues.
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