Mother Jones illustration; Jordan Strauss∕AP
Throughout the past few months, the owner of social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), Elon Musk, has been in an ongoing conflict with the government of Brazil. In August, following his refusal to adhere to Brazilian Justice Alexandre de Moraes of the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil’s orders to terminate X accounts that were apparently in violation of Brazilian law, and were spreading potentially “dangerous” fake news, Musk closed X’s offices in Brazil. The decision was officially made on August 17 after those present there were put under threat of arrest by Moraes, with Musk claiming these arrest orders were made to potentially silence his employees.
Social media platforms such as X have played a major role in Brazilian political discourse and conflict in recent years. In the past, before Musk’s takeover of Twitter from Jack Dorsey in October 2022, Justice Moraes had been known to controversially order the removal of social media accounts that were supposedly spreading false news to promote a right-wing agenda during election times. He ordered the temporary shutdown of the Telegram app in Brazil following its use in planning a storming of the Brazilian capital, Brasília, back in April of 2023. Upon his becoming Twitter (and subsequently X) CEO, one of Musk’s first courses of action was the contentious unbanning of accounts he deemed unworthy of being so, some of these being accounts taken down due to Morae’s orders. This was what originally brought him into conflict with the divisive justice.
Musk continued to refuse to take down the accounts, as he describes himself to be a “free-speech absolutist,” and believes that Morae’s actions go against the ideals of democracy. Musk went as far as to tweet out that “Judge Moraes has betrayed the Brazilian Constitution and its people. He should be prosecuted!” X was officially shut down in Brazil on August 31st upon Musk’s refusal to appoint a legal representative for the platform in Brazil.
In the aftermath of X’s banning in the country, it was also announced that those who attempted or managed to access X in Brazil through resources such as a VPN would be fined heavily, before Morae took it a step further, asking Apple and Google Play stores to prevent the downloading of VPNs in Brazil altogether. On top of this, he also ordered the seizure of the Brazilian assets of another one of Musk’s companies, the satellite internet service provider Starlink, in an attempt to pay off some of X’s fines.
While Musk appeared to accept the decision for a good time, with X even being banned in Brazil on Starlink, on Tuesday, October 7th, X was officially reinstated in Brazil. This comes after Musk seemingly has agreed to comply with Justice Morae’s orders on top of paying a fine of around $5 Million USD.