X’s Brazil office has closed amid Elon Musk’s latest censorship row

The social media platform remains available for access by residents of Brazil, the company’s post said. Included in the post were screenshots of a legal order issued by Brazil’s National High Court, which Reuters reported threatened a daily fine of 20,000 reais ($3,653), as well as issuing an arrest warrant against Rachel Nova Conceicao, representative of X. , if the social media site did not comply with Moraes’ orders to remove certain content from its platform.

De Moraes is specifically targeting content posted by “digital militias” who he says have methodically spread fake news and hate messages about former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.

Like the US, Brazil has speech protections enshrined in its constitution, but the Brazilian government has wider latitude to ban certain types of speech, such as hate speech, than the US government.

“Despite our numerous appeals to the Supreme Court going unheeded, the Brazilian public not being informed of these orders and our Brazilian staff having no responsibility or control over blocking content on our platform, Moraes chose to threaten our staff in Brazil. than to comply with the law or due process,” X’s statement to Global Government Affairs continued.

Musk and de Moraes have been in a public battle for months over the requested removals. De Moraes pressured the platform to block accounts accused of spreading fake news and threats against Brazil’s supreme court during President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration, threatening fines of around $20,000 a day for each blocked account that was reinstated.

X initially agreed to block the accounts under Brazil’s legal orders, complying with content moderation requests similar to those made by Turkey, which the platform had previously agreed to honor.

However, Musk later lifted the restrictions on the Brazilian accounts, despite Moraes’ threats of further fines and legal action, prompting de Moraes to launch an investigation into Musk in April. Musk, at the time, said that as a result of the move, “we will probably lose all of our revenue from Brazil and have to close our office there. But principles matter more than profit.”

Musk wrote in a post on Saturday when news of the office closure broke: “The decision to close the 𝕏 office in Brazil was difficult, but if we had agreed to the secret (illegal) censorship requests of @alexandre and passing on private information, there was no way we could explain our actions without feeling ashamed.”

Representatives for X and the National Court of Brazil did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s requests for comment.