Judge orders X ban in Brazil

A judge in Brazil has ordered the suspension of X after owner Elon Musk failed to designate a new legal representative for the country, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Earlier this month, Musk closed X’s offices in Brazil, saying Brazilian Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes threatened to arrest the company’s legal representative for not complying with “censorship orders.” Brazil’s Supreme Court notified X on Wednesday that if it didn’t appoint a new legal representative within 24 hours, it would be banned.

Musk and Moraes have been feuding for months. The Brazilian justice opened an investigation into X in April after Musk said he reactivated accounts that X was ordered to block over the spread of misinformation. As reported by The New York Times, many of the accounts Moraes ordered X to block are linked to supporters of the right-wing former President Jair Bolsonaro.

“We are absolutely not insisting that other countries have the same free speech laws as the United States,” X said in a Thursday evening post from its global government affairs account. “The fundamental issue at stake here is that Judge de Moraes demands we break Brazil’s own laws. We simply won’t do that.” In that post, X also said it would publish “all of Judge de Moraes’ illegal demands and all related court filings.”

Brazil requires major platforms to have a legal representative in the country. It has briefly banned other major social platforms in the past as well, including Telegram and WhatsApp.

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Starlink, part of another Elon Musk-affiliated company, SpaceX, said Thursday that Moraes also gave an order that froze Starlink’s finances. “This order is based on an unfounded determination that Starlink should be responsible for the fines levied — unconstitutionally — against X,” according to Starlink.