Top line
Elon Musk said on Saturday that X, formerly known as Twitter, would cease operations of the platform in Brazil after X claimed that Brazil’s top judge Alexandre de Moraes threatened to arrest a legal representative of the platform – an escalation in an ongoing dispute between Musk and Moraes.
Despite the billionaire’s comments, Moraes has not publicly commented on X with Musk. (Photo … (+)
Key data
Tensions between Musk and Moraes first emerged in April, when X’s global government affairs site said it had been forced to block “certain popular accounts” in Brazil without knowing the reason for the blocking order or which posts violated Brazilian law.
Moraes ordered X to block certain accounts as part of an investigation into “digital militias” accused of spreading disinformation and divisive messages, The Guardian reported.
X’s government affairs page said it was prohibited from disclosing which court or judge issued the order. However, Musk tagged Moraes directly in a follow-up post and later said X was asked to suspend sitting members of Brazil’s parliament and key journalists and had to pretend it made those suspensions based on X’s own regulations.
Musk later posted a series of tweets calling the court orders “the most draconian demands of any country” in the world. He also called for Moraes’ resignation, claiming that Moraes had imposed heavy fines and threatened to block Brazilians’ access to X – which Musk said could result in the platform losing all revenue in the country and having to close its Brazil office.
After Musk said he would reinstate the accounts that had been suspended under Moraes’ orders, the judge issued a ruling, according to Time, saying Musk would be included in the investigation into X, who was accused of obstruction of justice and incitement to commit crime.
X’s government affairs page, which recently posted several pages of Moraes’ blocking orders, said Saturday that the company had appealed the orders several times to Brazil’s Supreme Court, and that Moares had threatened to arrest one of its lawyers and fine it 20,000 reais, or $3,653, a day if it did not comply.
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Main critics
Musk said on Saturday that Moraes “has to go” and in a later post compared the judge’s appearance to that of “Harry Potter” villain Voldemort.
Contra
Some free speech activists have applauded Musk’s approach – but questioned his transparency. Nu Wexler, a partner at PR firm Four Corners Public Affairs (and a former Twitter employee on the communications team), accused Musk of “cherry-picking,” telling the Financial Times: “If the government wants something removed, (X’s) calculation now is: is this country going to buy electric cars from us?” X has also stopped self-reporting its government cease-and-desist letters to Harvard University’s Lumen database. However, X previously reported in a Rest of World report (citing Lumen) that X had approved over 80% of cease-and-desist letters from governments, 50% more than before Musk took over.
Forbes Rating
We estimate Musk’s net worth at $244.8 billion, making him the richest person in the world.
Who is Alexandre De Moraes?
Moraes joined Brazil’s Supreme Court in 2017 and is president of the country’s electoral court. According to Time, the judge led investigations into former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and investigated disinformation campaigns on social media.
Important background
Musk, who describes himself as a “champion of absolute freedom of speech,” has clashed with international government officials before. Weeks after his dispute with Moraes began, Musk accused Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of censorship after Australian regulators ordered X to remove videos of a violent stabbing in a church that made global headlines in April. X removed the videos, but criticized the sweeping scope of the order, as it required the posts to be removed from users’ feeds worldwide, not just in Australia. Albanese later called Musk an “arrogant billionaire who believes he is above the law, but also…above decency.”
More information
Elon Musk’s dispute with Brazil escalates as billionaire promises to delete his data once his employees are ‘safe’ from authorities (Forbes)
Musk says X has received an investigation from Congress into his actions that violate Brazilian law (Forbes)
