Supreme Court threatens to block X in Brazil for not having a local representative

A Supreme Court Justice threatened this Wednesday (Aug. 28) to block X (formerly known as Twitter) in Brazil, after the company failed to appoint a local representative in the country, deepening the clash between the social network, Elon Musk and the Brazilian highest court.

The company has 24 hours to comply starting at around 8 PM Brasilia Time.

The subpoena issued by the Supreme Court, which directly names Elon Musk, was strangely published as post on its official account in X's. The official post, a reply in another post made on Aug. 17 by X's Global Government Affairs profile, simply read "Mandado de Intimação", which in English means "Warrant for subpoena".

Nucleo has confirmed with Supreme Court's press representatives that the subpoena is real and valid. This method of judicial notification via social media by the Supreme Court has little precedent in Brazil – a deviation from traditional ways of legally notifying organizations and individuals.

The subpoena, was issued by Justice Alexandre de Moraes, a very polarizing figure in Brazil because of the way he has handled nation-wide investigations against online disinformation campaigns, especially in the far-right, in the past three years.

On Aug. 17, X published a post in its Global Affairs page criticizing Moraes for threatening to arrest a legal representative of the company in Brazil – a little known lawyer called Rachel de Oliveira Villa Nova Conceição – as well as a daily fine of BRL20,000 a day (around USD3,600) for not complying with judicial orders.

Since then, the company announced it would entirely close its office in Brazil.

Moraes and Twitter have been at odds since the Brazilian presidential election in 2022, with the Justice's tough stance against electoral disinformation and anti-democratic content.

On Jan 8, 2023, a mob of far-right supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro stormed public buildings in the Brazilian capital, Brasilia, including the Supreme Court, to protest election results, causing a lot of property damage and street violence.

Since Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter, later renaming it X, the company has fired most of the staff in Brazil, including moderators and government relations personnel, leaving a blank space in the articulation with authorities.

In April 2024, US journalist Michael Shellenberger reported on the so-called Twitter Files Brazil – a compilation of emails exchanged by mostly former X employees around judicial actions involving the social network.

Musk replied to Moraes new decision first by posting an AI-generated image of the Justice as a Star Wars-styled Sith Lord two red-beamed light sabers (as to indicate he thinks Moraes is evil), then saying Moraes has broken the law, as well as commenting other posts criticizing the judge.