Elon Musk’s X platform shut down its office in Brazil as the government attempted to coerce censorship.
Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes and Musk had spent months battling over online free speech, with Musk refusing the justice’s aggressive and extensive censorship demands. On Saturday, X’s Global Government Affairs announced its decision to close the Brazil office due to De Moraes’s shocking threats to X staff over alleged “disinformation” on the platform. X is still available to Brazilians, however.
“The decision to close the 𝕏 office in Brazil was difficult, but, if we had agreed to @alexandre’s (illegal) secret censorship and private information handover demands, there was no way we could explain our actions without being ashamed,” Musk commented on X.
As shown in several MRC Free Speech America studies, X has suppressed some free speech, but not on the scale and harshness required by De Moraes.
X’s Global Government Affairs added more details. “Last night, Alexandre de Moraes threatened our legal representative in Brazil with arrest if we do not comply with his censorship orders. He did so in a secret order, which we share here to expose his actions,” X Global Government Affairs stated in an X post.
It continued that numerous appeals to the Supreme Court went unheard despite Brazilian staff having no responsibility or control over content moderation. Instead, Moraes chose to “threaten” X’s staff in Brazil “rather than respect the law or due process.” This, the Global Government Affairs X account lamented, led the platform to shut down the Brazilian operation “effective immediately.”
The X Global Government Affairs account added that the justice’s actions are “incompatible with democratic government,” and concluded that the people of Brazil “have a choice to make - democracy, or Alexandre de Moraes.”
Musk had previously reposted an assertion that “𝕏 is the #1 news app in Brazil on the AppStore” and “Alexandre de Moraes is demanding censorship of the only source of truth in Brazil.”
Related: UPDATE: Are You Paying Attention? Brazil Escalates Major Free Speech Assault
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment and provide an equal platform for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using MRC Free Speech America’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
