Social media platform X, owned by Elon Musk, has named a legal representative in Brazil, according to the company’s lawyers, to comply with one of the original orders made by the country’s supreme court in the process that led to the shutdown of the platform in Brazil.
On Sept. 21, André Zonaro and Sergio Rosenthal, who were recently appointed as X’s lawyers in Brazil, told Reuters that their colleague Rachel de Oliveira Conceicao was chosen as the firm’s legal representative and that they had submitted her name to the supreme court.
On Sept. 19, the lawyers representing X in Brazil said the firm was starting to comply with orders regarding removing content, another demand from the top court. The Epoch Times has not been able to independently verify this claim and has contacted X and Brazil’s supreme court for comment.
Block Access
Last month, Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered all telecom providers in the country to block access to X, escalating a months-long dispute between X owner Elon Musk and the South American country over free speech and posts that the judge described as misinformation.In August, X shut down operations in Brazil, saying that Brazilian authorities had threatened the company’s legal representative with imprisonment for failing to comply with what X described as “censorship orders.”
Earlier this year, de Moraes ordered X to block certain accounts, as he investigated so-called digital militias accused of spreading fake news and hate messages during the government of former President Jair Bolsonaro.
The inquiry—backed by the current leftist government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—came after the Tesla CEO challenged a court order requiring the removal of certain accounts on X as part of alleged efforts to crack down on fake news and misinformation in Brazil.
The five-year investigation, overseen by de Moraes, appointed as a justice of the Supreme Federal Court in 2017 by then-President Michel Temer, blamed the accounts for inciting demonstrations across the country after Bolsonaro’s 2022 loss.
Forced by Court Decisions to Block Claims
X claims that it had been forced by court decisions to block “certain popular accounts in Brazil” and was prohibited from disclosing the targeted accounts. On Aug. 13, it shared a document with the accounts.“This letter demands censorship of popular Brazilian accounts, including a pastor, a current Parliamentarian, and the wife of a former Parliamentarian. We believe the Brazilian people should know what is being asked of us,” a statement on X’s Global Government Affairs account reads.
Free speech and privacy activists have warned that Brazil’s enforcement of its ban on X, through fines for using VPNs, defines a potential battleground between internet freedom and regulation.
Since the introduction of the penalty, equal to nearly a year’s salary for the average middle-class Brazilian, there has been a documented decrease in attempts to access X.
While some Brazilian congressmen have continued using X despite the ban, it is not known whether they are using VPNs.
‘Draconian Orders’
X is banned in countries with severe human rights restrictions, such as China, Russia, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Myanmar, Iran, and Pakistan.“Heavy-handed government censors will use whatever tool at their disposal to chill speech—and as Brazil shows us that includes fining people for using VPNs to access disfavored platforms,” ADF’s senior vice president of corporate engagement, Jeremy Tedesco, told The Epoch Times by email.
