Brazilian Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes on Tuesday allowed the social media platform X to be restored in Brazil, more than a month after it was shut down nationwide, according to a court document that was made public.
Elon Musk’s X app was banned on August 30 in the Internet-heavy country of 213 million — one of De Moraes ordered the closure after a months-long dispute with Musk over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation. Musk disparaged De Moraes, calling him an autocrat and a censor, even though his judgments, including X’s comment, have been repeatedly endorsed by his peers.
Despite Musk’s public bravado, X eventually complied with all of de Moraes’ demands. These measures included banning certain accounts from the platform, paying outstanding fines, and naming a legal representative in the country. Failure to do the latter resulted in suspension.
“The resumption of (X) activities on national territory was only conditional on full compliance with Brazilian laws and absolute respect for the decisions of the judiciary, out of respect for national sovereignty,” de Moraes said in the court document.
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Just two days before the ban, on August 28, X said it would withdraw all of its remaining employees in Brazil “with immediate effect,” saying that de Moraes had threatened to arrest its legal representative in the country, Rachel de Oliveira Vila Nova Conceição, if X did not comply with orders to block accounts. .
Brazilian law requires that foreign companies have a local legal representative to receive notifications of court decisions and quickly take any required action – especially, in the case of X, removing accounts. Conceição was first appointed as X’s legal representative in April and resigned four months later. The company appointed her to the same position on September 20, according to a public filing with the São Paulo Commercial Registry.
In an apparent attempt to protect Conceição from potential abuse by In writing, according to the company’s filing.
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Conceição works for BR4Business, a business services company. Its two-page website provides no insight into its operations or employees. “Something great is on the way,” it says at the top of the site’s home page in English. Its other page is an extensive privacy policy.
At three of its listed offices in Sao Paulo, receptionists told the AP that the company’s offices are empty and employees are working remotely. Neither Conceição nor BR4Business responded to multiple phone calls and emails from the AP.
Fabio de sa e Silva, a lawyer and associate professor of international and Brazilian studies at Columbia University, said there is nothing illegal or questionable about a company like BR4Business using legal representation, but it shows that X is doing the bare minimum for work in the country. University of Oklahoma.
“He shows no intention of truly engaging with the country. Take Meta, for example, and Google. “They have an office, a government relations department, specifically to interact with public authorities and discuss Brazil’s regulatory policies regarding their business,” Silva added.
In fact, it’s rare for a company as established and influential as X to have only a legal representative, said Carlos Afonso Souza, a lawyer and director of the Institute of Technology and Society, a Rio-based think tank. That could be a problem moving forward.
“The concern now is what comes next and how X, once back in business, will be able to meet the demands of the market and local authorities without creating new tensions,” he said.
Some Brazilian X users have moved to other platforms, such as Meta’s Threads, and mainly Bluesky. It’s not clear how many users will return to X. In a statement to the AP, Bluesky said it now has 10.6 million users and continues to see strong growth in Brazil. Bluesky has appointed a legal representative in the South American country.
Brazil was not the first country to ban X – far from it – but such a radical move has generally been limited to authoritarian regimes. The platform and its previous incarnation, Twitter, have been banned in Russia, China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Venezuela and Turkmenistan. Other countries, such as Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt, have also temporarily suspended X before, usually to suppress dissent and unrest.
There are some similarities between X’s crisis with Brazil and the company’s dealings with the Indian government three years ago, when it was still called Twitter and before Musk bought it for $44 billion. In 2021, India threatened to arrest Twitter employees (as well as Meta’s Facebook and WhatsApp), for not complying with government requests to remove posts related to the farmer protests that have rocked the country.
Musk’s decision to reverse course in Brazil after publicly criticizing de Moraes is not surprising, said Mateo Servels, research firm Emarketer’s analyst for Latin America and Spain.
“The move was practical, likely driven by the economic consequences of losing access to millions of users in its third-largest market worldwide, along with millions of dollars in associated advertising revenue,” Servils said. “While X may not be a top priority for most advertisers in Brazil, the platform needs them more than they need it.”
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Ortutay reported from San Francisco
& Edition 2024 The Canadian Press
