Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, has announced its decision to cease operations in Brazil while still allowing users in the country to access its services. This development is part of an escalating conflict between Mr. Musk, the world’s wealthiest individual, and Justice Alexandre de Moraes of Brazil’s Supreme Court, who is leading initiatives to address the issues of misinformation and hate speech within the largest economy in Latin America.
The Global Government Affairs department of X disclosed in a recent post that Justice de Moraes had threatened legal representatives of the company with arrest should they fail to adhere to his directives regarding content moderation. According to X, this threat was communicated through a covert order, which they have chosen to publicly share to illustrate the gravity of the situation.
A spokesperson for Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court has refrained from commenting on the matter. X provided an automated response to inquiries from Bloomberg regarding the situation. In a separate communication, Mr. Musk characterized the decision to close the office as a challenging one.
The magnitude of X’s operations within Brazil remains somewhat ambiguous, although reports indicate that the platform had approximately 20 million active users in the nation during the first quarter of the year, reflecting a decrease of about 15% compared to the previous year, as reported by data analytics firm Sensor Tower.
The Brazilian Supreme Court has rendered several rulings requiring the suspension of social media accounts belonging to high-profile individuals, mandated the removal of specific posts, and cautioned that it might resort to issuing temporary shutdown orders for entire platforms. Mr. Musk’s contentious remarks regarding the Court’s directives have led to an investigation being initiated against him. These developments signal a significant turning point in the relationship between digital platforms and regulatory authorities in Brazil.
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