X Complies With Brazilian Court Demand That Led to Shutdown

Elon Musk’s X has named a legal representative in Brazil, according to the firm’s lawyers, complying with one of the original orders made by the Supreme Court in the process that led to the shutdown of the platform.
On Saturday Andre Zonaro and Sergio Rosenthal, who were recently appointed as X’s lawyers in Brazil, told Reuters that their colleague Rachel de Oliveira Conceicao was chosen as the firm’s legal representative and that they had submitted her name to the Supreme Court.
On Thursday, the lawyers representing X in Brazil said the firm was starting to comply with orders on removing content, another demand from the top court. The Epoch Times has not been able to independently verify this claim and has contacted X and Brazil’s Supreme Court for comment.
In August, X shut down operations in Brazil, saying that Brazilian authorities had threatened the company’s legal representative with imprisonment for failing to comply with what X described as “censorship orders.”
Earlier this year, de Moraes ordered X to block certain accounts, as he investigated so-called digital militias accused of spreading fake news and hate messages during the government of former President Jair Bolsonaro.
The inquiry—backed by the current leftist government of Lula—came after the Tesla CEO challenged a court order requiring the removal of certain accounts on X as part of alleged efforts to crack down on fake news and misinformation in Brazil.
The five-year investigation, overseen by de Moraes, appointed as a justice of the STF in 2017 by then-President Michel Temer, blamed the accounts for inciting demonstrations across the country after Bolsonaro’s 2022 loss.
“This letter demands censorship of popular Brazilian accounts, including a pastor, a current Parliamentarian, and the wife of a former Parliamentarian. We believe the Brazilian people should know what is being asked of us,” X’s Global Government Affairs account wrote in a statement.
Free speech and privacy activists have warned that Brazil’s enforcement of its ban on social media platform X, through fines for using VPNs, defines a potential battleground between internet freedom and regulation.
Since the introduction of the penalty, equal to nearly a year’s salary for the average middle-class Brazilian, there has been a documented decrease in attempts to access X.
While some Brazilian congressmen have continued using X despite the ban, it is not known whether they are using VPNs.
“Heavy-handed government censors will use whatever tool at their disposal to chill speech—and as Brazil shows us that includes fining people for using VPNs to access disfavored platforms,” ADF’s senior vice president of corporate engagement, Jeremy Tedesco, told The Epoch Times by email.