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SAN FRANCISCO — Elon Musk-run X on Saturday announced to close its operation in Brazil, effective immediately, to protect the safety of its staff. However, the X service will remain available in the country.
The tech billionaire said that due to demands by Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes that would require “us to break (in secret) Brazilian, Argentinian, American and international law, X has no choice but to close our local operations in Brazil”.
The social media platform claimed that the judge secretly threatened one of its legal representatives in Brazil with arrest if it did not comply with legal orders to take down some content from its platform.
“Last night, Alexandre de Moraes threatened our legal representative in Brazil with arrest if we do not comply with his censorship orders. He did so in a secret order, which we share here to expose his actions,” said X.
The decision to close the 𝕏 office in Brazil was difficult, but, if we had agreed to @alexandre’s (illegal) secret censorship and private information handover demands, there was no way we could explain our actions without being ashamed.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 17, 2024
The platform further claimed that Moraes has chosen to threaten its staff in Brazil rather than respect the law or due process.
“As a result, to protect the safety of our staff, we have made the decision to close our operation in Brazil, effective immediately. The X service remains available to the people of Brazil,” said the company.
X said the judge’s actions are incompatible with democratic government.
“The people of Brazil have a choice to make -- democracy, or Alexandre de Moraes,“ the social media company posted.
The Musk-run platform further said that despite its numerous appeals to the Supreme Court not being heard, the Brazilian public not being informed about these orders and our Brazilian staff having no responsibility or control over whether content is blocked on our platform, Moraes has taken this path.