Brazil judge suspends Musk's X in 'fake news' crusade

Brazil's telecommunications regulator said on Friday it was suspending access to Elon Musk's X social network in the country to comply with an order from a judge who has been locked in a months-long feud with the billionaire investor.

The popular social media platform missed a court-imposed deadline on Thursday evening to name a legal representative in Brazil, triggering the suspension.

Musk has argued that Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes was trying to enforce unjustified censorship, while the judge has insisted that social media needs hate speech regulations.

"They're shutting down the #1 source of truth in Brazil," Musk said in a post on X on Friday.

The judge's ruling could cause X to lose one of its largest and most coveted markets, at a time when Musk has struggled with advertising revenue for the platform.

X remained accessible in Brazil late on Friday, though some Brazilians posted on other platforms that their access to X was already being blocked. Three of the country's top telecommunications carriers said they would begin blocking access from midnight (0300 GMT on Saturday), according to a report by local news outlet UOL.

Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes' decision to shut down billionaire Elon Musk's social media platform X is just the latest chapter in a no-holds-barred crusade against perceived attacks on democracy and the political use of disinformation.

Moraes ordered telecomunications regulator Anatel to implement the suspension order, and to confirm to the court within 24 hours that it had carried it out.

Musk, who is also CEO of electric-vehicle maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX, had previously denounced the threatened move as censorship.

Moraes, 55, is a lawyer who was tough on fighting crime when he was in charge of public security for the state of Sao Paulo. He shot to prominence in 2019, two years after his appointment to the Supreme Court, when he began to lead an investigation into "fake news" being generated during the government of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.

The feud has led to the freezing this week of satellite internet provider Starlink's bank accounts in Brazil. Starlink is a unit of Musk-led rocket company SpaceX.

In his ruling, Moraes ordered that X, formerly Twitter, be suspended in Brazil until it complied with all related court orders, including the payment of more than $3 million in fines, as well as the designation of a local representative, as required by Brazilian law.

Moraes also ordered telecommunications regulator Anatel to implement the suspension order.

The agency told Reuters it is proceeding with compliance, but without specifying a timetable.

To effectively close X in Brazil, telecommunication companies will need to stop carrying the network's traffic, while also preventing users of the site from dodging it by concealing their locations with virtual private networks, or VPNs.

Moraes ordered that those who continued to access X via VPNs be fined up to 50,000 reais ($9,000) per day.

That investigation, which is still open, focused on what Moraes himself has described as a "cabinet of hate" that operated from inside Bolsonaro's presidential palace with the aim of attacking opponents and spreading lies and distortions.

"Brazilian institutions were failing to regulate social media properly," said André Cesar, a political analyst. "Moraes took on the role of grand regulator and he likes doing that."

Among the falsehoods investigated by the judge was criticism by Bolsonaro and his political associates that Brazil's electronic voting system was open to manipulation.

Moraes was also in charge of investigating an alleged conspiracy to provoke a military coup to overturn Bolsonaro's defeat by leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2022 and Bolsonaro's encouragement of his supporters to invade and vandalize government buildings a week after Lula took office.

Under his leadership, the country's electoral authority declared Bolsonaro ineligible for eight years, the first time this happened to a Brazilian president in the country's history.

Tech giants Apple  and Alphabet's Google  were initially instructed to remove X from their app stores and implement so-called anti-VPN obstacles that would make it more difficult for users of Apple's iOS operating system and Google's Android to open the X app on phones or tablets.

But Moraes later reversed that part of his order, saying it would not be needed.

Lapdogs and dictators?

Unlike in many other countries, Brazil's Supreme Court judges are able to exercise sweeping powers to make unilateral decisions. But in the dispute over X, Moraes has been backed by a majority of the 11-member court, including Chief Justice Roberto Barroso.

Musk, in addition to owning X and 40% of SpaceX, is the CEO of electric vehicle giant Tesla.

The dispute over X has its roots in a Moraes order from earlier this year that required the platform to block accounts implicated in probes of alleged spreading of distorted news and hate.

Musk, who has compared Moraes to the "Harry Potter" villain Voldemort, has also described the judge as a "dictator," calling him "an outright criminal of the worst kind, masquerading as a judge."

In his fight against disinformation, the judge ordered social media networks to take down postings by politicians and influencers that he deemed to be a threat to Brazil's institutions, usually on accounts of Bolsonaro backers who denied he had lost his 2022 reelection bid.

And that is where his run-ins with Musk's platform began.

After Musk challenged his decision to bar certain accounts and said he would reactivate them, Moraes in April opened an inquiry into the billionaire for obstruction of justice.

Earlier this month, X announced it was closing its offices in Brazil due to what it called "censorship orders" from Moraes, though it kept its site open for Brazilian users.

Musk denounced the order as censorship. He responded by closing the company's offices in Brazil but ensured the platform was still available in the country.

He has said Starlink would continue to serve Brazilians, including the military, for free "until this matter is resolved."

Earlier on Friday, Starlink asked the Supreme Court to suspend its decision to freeze its local bank accounts, arguing it has complied with all judicial orders. That request was dismissed on Friday evening.

Asked to comment, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva insisted that all businesses operating in the country must comply with their legal obligations.

"Just because a guy has a lot of money doesn't mean he can disrespect" the law, the leftist leader told local radio on Friday.

Musk derided the president as Moraes' "lapdog" in a Thursday post in which he also called the judge a "dictator."

At an event on Friday, Moraes showed no signs of backing down.

"Those who violate democracy, who violate fundamental human rights, whether in person or through social media, must be held accountable," he said.

While Moraes' defenders see him as a crusader in the defense of democracy, critics accuse him of using heavy-handed methods to raid the homes of politicians and businessmen, arrest them without trial and freeze their bank accounts.

Before sitting on the Supreme Court, Moraes was minister of justice after serving as secretary of public security in his home state of Sao Paulo.

Moraes, a Catholic, holds conservative views on the economy. For years, he was a member of the centrist Brazilian Social Democracy Party which has largely vanished from the political landscape.