X (formerly Twitter) announced it is closing its operations in Brazil due to an escalating legal dispute with Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes over content removal orders and free speech issues.
X remains available to the people of Brazil despite the closure of its offices.
Moraes threatened to arrest X's legal representative and ordered investigations into Elon Musk, the CEO of X, for allegedly spreading fake news and obstruction, as part of an investigation into election disinformation.
Justice Moraes ordered the platform to block certain accounts and accused it of harboring "digital militias" spreading misinformation about former President Jair Bolsonaro.
X opted to end its local operations "to protect the safety of our staff" instead of complying with Moraes' demands for censorship, and publicly shared the "secret order" in which de Moraes made the threat.
Musk has been openly defying orders from de Moraes for months, claiming they are unconstitutional. He called him a "brutal dictator" and "Brazil's Darth Vader," and challenged his decisions on X as unconstitutional, leading to an escalation in the ongoing dispute between the two.
Supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro have criticized Justice Moraes and called for his impeachment. Bolsonaro has been blocked from seeking office again by Brazil's Superior Electoral Court.
Moraes has been granted expanded powers to combat disinformation and has targeted social media companies and individuals, accusing Musk of waging a disinformation campaign against the court, while X's government affairs team believes Moraes' actions are undemocratic.
Since Musk's acquisition, X has reduced online moderation efforts amidst criticism from Moraes.
X claimed that it received an inquiry from Congress on its actions that violated Brazilian law, and that Brazilian staff had no responsibility or control over the blocked content, with the responsibility for the closure lying solely with Moraes.
This article was written in collaboration with Generative AI news company Alchemiq
Sources: Sky News, Business Insider, Washington Post, Bloomberg, MarketWatch, Daily Mail, AP News, WSJ, BBC, NBC News, The Guardian, Forbes, FT, Politico, Fox Business, SCMP, The Verge, The Hill, Engadget, TechCrunch.