Brazilian Judge Alexandre de Moraes has moved to shut down billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk‘s social media platform X (formerly Twitter). The sealed order, filed late Thursday evening, alleges that Musk has failed to name an in-country legal representative. Additionally, de Moraes is demanding that Google and Apple remove X from their respective app within five days.
According to the order, any Brazilian using a VPN service to access X can be fined upwards of nearly $9,000 a day.
The National Pulse previously reported that the Supreme Court of Brazil has demanded that X and Musk name a legal representative for the social media platform or face being banned from the country. Earlier this month, X announced it would shut down its operations in Brazil and lay off its staff due to what it described as “censorship orders” from Judge Alexandre de Moraes. Despite this, X said the site would remain available to Brazilian users.
Musk’s conflict with de Moraes stems from a high court order for X to block accounts linked to “digital militias” accused of spreading “fake news” and “hate messages” during former President Jair Bolsonaro’s government. Musk challenged this decision and threatened to reactivate the blocked accounts, setting off the current standoff between de Moraes and Musk in April.
X has also alleged that de Moraes secretly threatened one of its legal representatives with arrest if the company did not comply with orders to remove specific content.
In a ruling on Wednesday, de Moraes stated that under Brazilian internet laws, companies failing to respect national legislation or private information confidentiality risk having their activities suspended.
BREAKING: Brazil Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes orders the complete and immediate ban of 𝕏 in the country. pic.twitter.com/tUIjU2ajc9
— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) August 30, 2024
This story is developing…