SÃO PAULO — Brazil began blocking Elon Musk’s social media platform X early Saturday, making it largely inaccessible both on the web and via mobile apps after the billionaire refused to appoint a legal representative in the country.
The move escalates a months-long dispute between Musk and a Brazilian Supreme Court judge over free speech, far-right accounts and disinformation. Judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered the suspension on Friday.
To block X, Brazil’s telecommunications regulator, Anatel, asked internet service providers to suspend users’ access to the social network. After midnight local time on Saturday, the major operators began doing so.
De Moraes had warned Elon Musk on Wednesday night that X could be blocked in Brazil if it did not comply with his order to appoint a representative, and had set a deadline of 24 hours. The company has not had a representative in the country since the beginning of the month.
“Elon Musk has shown his total lack of respect for Brazilian sovereignty and, in particular, for the judiciary, by setting himself up as a true supranational entity and immune to the laws of each country,” de Moraes wrote in his decision on Friday.
The judge said the platform would remain suspended until it complies with his orders, and also set a daily fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) for individuals or companies using VPNs to access it.
In a subsequent decision, it reversed its initial decision to set a five-day deadline for internet service providers themselves – not just the telecoms regulator – to block access to X, as well as its directive asking app stores to remove virtual private networks, or VPNs.
Brazil is one of the biggest markets for X, which has suffered from the loss of advertisers since Musk bought the former Twitter in 2022. Market research group Emarketer says some 40 million Brazilians, or about a fifth of the population, access X at least once a month.
“This is a sad day for X users around the world, especially those in Brazil, who are being denied access to our platform. I wish this didn’t happen, it breaks my heart,” X CEO Linda Yaccarino said Friday night, adding that Brazil was failing to live up to its constitutional commitment to ban censorship.
X had posted on his official Global Government Affairs page on Thursday night that he expected X to be shut down by de Moraes, “simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents.”
“When we tried to defend ourselves in court, Judge Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all her bank accounts,” the company wrote.
X clashed with de Moraes over his reluctance to comply with orders to block users.
Among the accounts the platform has already closed on Brazil’s orders are lawmakers affiliated with former President Jair Bolsonaro’s right-wing party and activists accused of undermining Brazilian democracy. In April, X’s lawyers sent a document to the Supreme Court, saying that since 2019, it had suspended or blocked 226 users.
In his decision Friday, de Moraes cited Musk’s statements as evidence that X’s conduct “is clearly aimed at continuing to encourage extremist messages, hate speech and anti-democratic speech, and at attempting to shield them from judicial review.”
In April, de Moraes included Musk as a target in an ongoing investigation into the spread of fake news and opened a separate investigation into the executive for alleged obstruction.
Elon Musk, who calls himself an “absolute defender of free speech,” has repeatedly claimed that the judge’s actions amount to censorship, and his argument has been echoed by Brazil’s political right. He has often insulted De Moraes on his platform, calling him a dictator and a tyrant.
De Moraes’s defenders have said his actions targeting X were legal, supported by most of the court’s justices, and served to protect democracy at a time when it is in danger. He wrote Friday that his decision was based on Brazilian law that requires internet service companies to have representation in the country so they can be informed of relevant court decisions and take necessary action — including removing illegal content posted by users and a wave of disinformation expected during October’s municipal elections.
The impending closure is not unprecedented in Brazil.
Isolated Brazilian judges shut down WhatsApp, the country’s most widely used messaging app, repeatedly in 2015 and 2016 over the company’s refusal to comply with police requests for user data. In 2022, de Moraes threatened the messaging app Telegram with a nationwide shutdown, arguing that it had repeatedly ignored Brazilian authorities’ demands to block profiles and provide information. He ordered Telegram to appoint a local representative; the company eventually complied and remained online.
X and its former incarnation, Twitter, have been banned in several countries, primarily by authoritarian regimes like Russia, China, Iran, Burma, North Korea, Venezuela, and Turkmenistan. Other countries, like Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt, have also temporarily suspended X before, typically to quell dissent and unrest. Twitter was banned in Egypt after the Arab Spring uprisings, which some dubbed the “Twitter Revolution,” but it has since been reinstated.
A search of X on Friday showed hundreds of Brazilian users inquiring about VPNs that could potentially allow them to continue using the platform by making it appear as if they were connecting from abroad. It was not immediately clear how Brazilian authorities would police this practice and impose fines, de Moraes said.
“This is an unusual measure, but its main objective is to ensure that the court order to suspend the operation of the platform is actually effective,” Filipe Medon, a digital law specialist and professor at the law school of the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a university in Rio de Janeiro, told The Associated Press.
Mariana de Souza Alves Lima, known by her pseudonym MariMoon, showed her 1.4 million followers on X where she plans to go, posting a screenshot on rival social network BlueSky.
On Thursday night, Elon Musk’s satellite internet provider Starlink said on X that de Moraes had frozen his finances this week, preventing him from making any transactions in the country where he has more than 250,000 customers.
“This order is based on an unfounded decision that Starlink should be liable for the fines imposed – unconstitutionally – on X. It was issued in secret and without granting Starlink any of the due process guarantees guaranteed by the Brazilian Constitution. We intend to settle this matter in court,” Starlink said in its statement. The law firm representing Starlink told the AP that the company has appealed, but declined to comment further.
Musk responded to people who shared the news of the freeze, adding insults aimed at de Moraes. “This guy @Alexandre is a true criminal of the worst kind, posing as a judge,” he wrote.
Elon Musk then posted on X that SpaceX, which operates Starlink, would provide free internet service in Brazil “until the problem is resolved” because “we can’t receive payment, but we don’t want to cut anyone off.”
In his decision, de Moraes said he ordered the freezing of Starlink’s assets because X did not have enough money in its accounts to cover the increasing fines, and considering that the two companies are part of the same economic group.
Although X’s suspension was ordered after warnings and fines and is therefore appropriate, taking action against Starlink seems “highly questionable,” said Luca Belli, coordinator of the Getulio Vargas Foundation’s Technology and Society Center.
“Yes, of course, they have the same owner, Elon Musk, but it is discretionary to consider Starlink as part of the same economic group as Twitter (X). They have no connection, they have no integration,” Belli said.
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Ortutay reported from San Francisco and Biller from Rio. AP writer Mauricio Savarese contributed from Sao Paulo.
