WASHINGTON: Social media platform X, formerly Twitter, will shut down its local operations in Brazil following a bitter legal dispute over the rights and responsibilities of the platform, owner Elon Musk said on Saturday. The service will remain available to Brazilian users. The shutdown was the apparent culmination of an ongoing legal battle between Musk and Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who said he was trying to combat the spread of dangerous misinformation online. A Saturday post from Global Government Affairs X said Moraes “threatened our attorney in Brazil with arrest if we disobeyed his censorship orders.” It said the office closure was necessary “to protect the safety of our employees” and added that “responsibility rests solely with Alexandre de Moraes.” The Brazilian government criticized X’s attitude, and the minister of digital policies, Joao Brant, wrote on the platform that the company had a “pathetic attitude”. He added that X would force “a likely escalation that could lead to a platform lockout.” Moraes previously ordered the suspension of several Twitter accounts suspected of spreading disinformation, including followers of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who tried to discredit the electoral system in the 2022 presidential election, which he lost. “Freedom of expression does not mean freedom of aggression,” Moraes said. “It does not mean freedom to defend tyranny. Moraes spearheaded the fight against disinformation in South America’s largest country. He chairs Brazil’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), which last year declared Bolsonaro ineligible to run for office again, saying he had spread false information about the electoral system.
