Today, after a month’s suspension, X performs in Brazil again. The platform was suspended in delayed August following a hearing with the country’s Supreme Court in which X refused to issue a court order to remove some right-wing accounts and content that the court said violated Brazilian law. After weeks of not following the rules, Elon Musk appears to have stepped down.
Judge of the Brazilian Supreme Court Alexandre de Moraes authorized X’s return after the company blocked profiles accused of spreading false information, it reappointed a legal representative in the country and paid fines of 28.6 million reais ($5.1 million).
X released a statement on his platform saying he was “proud to be back in Brazil.” “Providing tens of millions of Brazilians with access to our essential platform has been paramount throughout this process.” – we read in the statement. “We will continue to defend free speech, within the limits of the law, wherever we operate.”
“I think he finally realized he had no choice,” says Nina Santos, a digital democracy researcher at Brazil’s National Institute of Science and Technology, who studies the Brazilian far-right. “And besides, people in Brazil just started not caring.”
Shortly after Musk acquired the former Twitter in October 2022, the company received a consent decree from a Brazilian court threatening a ban if it did not follow through on its commitments to curb election-related misinformation and disinformation during the country’s presidential campaign. breaks. According to employees who spoke to WIRED at the time, trust and safety staff managed to convince Musk to maintain Twitter’s rules and guardrails. But less than two weeks later, Musk released over half the company, including most of the company’s trust and safety staff.
Musk’s “absolutism of free speech” also meant that the company restored accounts which was previously prohibited. At the same time, the company withdrew from moderation, which allowed disinformation and hate speech to spread on the platform.
In April, de Moraes served the company with an order to remove a selected group of accounts and content that, according to the court, spread disinformation about the country’s electoral system. (In 2023, after former right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro lost the election, his supporters attacked the Brazilian legislature).
Musk backed down on the court’s orders, refusing to remove the content. On August 19, Company X announced that it would close its offices in Brazil, meaning it would no longer have a national representative. Without a person designated to correspond with the government and legally responsible for the company’s decisions, Moraes ordered the suspension of the platform in Brazil. He also took aim at another Musk company, Starlink, claiming it was part of the same “economic group” and his goal was the company was fined $2 million after Musk initially said Starlink would not block X.
Musk ultimately relented, and Starlink complied with the court’s order. Meanwhile, X briefly escaped the block in Brazil directing traffic through Cloudflare– which the company said was “inadvertent” – although that avenue was quickly closed as well. Last week, the company said it had appointed a legal representative in the country and was filing paperwork to allow people to return home online. Once X paid a reported $5 million in fines imposed by the courts, he was allowed to resume his business. Time is critical; There will be several crucial local elections in Brazil in October.
“I think it’s a victory for the court,” says Ivar Hartmann, associate professor of law at the Insper Institute of Education and Research in São Paulo. “It will be easier for the Supreme Court to block Starlink accounts in the future if X behaves inappropriately again.”
However, Hartmann says as long as the company complies with the law, has legal representation and follows court orders, he sees no further problems. At least not for Musk. “Chances [the legal representative] at some point having an arrest warrant against them is zero. There is a possibility,” he says. “So I hope they make a lot of money.”
Santos says he suspects that even if X violates court orders again, at least Starlink will be isolated to some extent, noting that the company provides internet access to many rural Brazilians. “It’s much easier to live without X than Starlink in Brazil,” Santos says.