Elon Musk’s X is back in Brazil after its suspension, having complied with all judicial demands

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/10/2024 (725 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The social media platform X began returning to Brazil on Wednesday, after remaining inaccessible for more than a month due to a clash between its owner, Elon Musk, and a justice on the country’s highest court.

Internet service providers began restoring access to the platform after Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes authorized lifting X’s suspension on Tuesday.

“TWITTER IS ALIVE,” Lucas dos Santos Consoli, known as luscas on X, wrote on the platform to his more than 7 million followers.

“I’m happy that the platform decided to follow the laws of Brazil and finally adapted, after all I’ve been using the app for almost 15 years so I can’t deny that I was missing it,” the 31-year-old told The Associated Press.

De Moraes ordered the shutdown of X on Aug. 30 after a monthslong dispute with Musk over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation. Musk had disparaged de Moraes, calling him an authoritarian and a censor, although his rulings, including X’s nationwide suspension, were repeatedly upheld by his peers.

Musk’s company ultimately complied with all of de Moraes’ demands. They included blocking certain accounts from the platform, paying outstanding fines and naming a legal representative. Failure to do the latter had triggered the suspension.

“This sends a message to the world that the richest person on the planet is subject to local laws and constitutions,” said David Nemer, who specializes in the anthropology of technology at the University of Virginia. It could set a precedent as to how other countries that are clashing with Musk — such as Australia — could move forward, as it shows Musk is not unbeatable, he added.

Brazil — a highly online country of 213 million people — is one of X’s biggest markets, with estimates of its user base ranging from 20 million to 40 million.

“X is proud to return to Brazil,” the company said in a statement posted on its Global Government Affairs account. “Giving tens of millions of Brazilians access to our indispensable platform was paramount throughout this entire process. We will continue to defend freedom of speech, within the boundaries of the law, everywhere we operate.”

Julia Bahri, an 18-year-old law student, said she was delighted with X’s return. She said that losing access to the platform had led to “one of the most desperate feelings I’ve experienced for a while,” adding that she had felt lost with regards to news.

Bahri said she uses X to express herself, whereas Instagram and Snapchat are mostly for posting photos.

The Aug. 30 ban came two days after the company said it was removing all its remaining staff in Brazil. X said de Moraes had threatened to arrest its legal representative in the country, Rachel de Oliveira Villa Nova Conceição, if the company did not comply with orders to block accounts.

Brazilian law requires foreign companies to have a local legal representative to receive notifications of court decisions and swiftly take any requisite action — particularly, in X’s case, the takedown of accounts.

Sleeping Giants Brazil, a platform for activism that seeks to combat fake news and hate speech, said the resumption of X’s activities in Brazil marked “a significant victory for Brazilian democracy.”

“It is crucial to remain steadfast against efforts to weaken democratic state authority, institutions and values,” it said in a statement.

Some of Brazilian X’s users have migrated to other platforms, such as Meta’s Threads and, primarily, Bluesky. It’s unclear how many of them will return to X.

In a statement to the AP, Bluesky reported that it now has 10.6 million users and continues to see strong growth in Brazil. Bluesky has appointed a legal representative in the South American country.

“Never get back with your eX,” Paul Frazee, a developer at Bluesky, wrote on the platform on Tuesday.

X is returning to Brazil weaker than it was before the ban, said Nemer, noting that X is now worth less than a fifth than when Musk bought Twitter. The platform has lost a lot of users, especially in Brazil, he said.

Brazil was not the first country to ban X — but such a drastic step has generally been limited to authoritarian regimes. The platform and its former incarnation, Twitter, have been banned in Russia, China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Venezuela and Turkmenistan. Other countries, such as Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt, have also temporarily suspended X before, usually to quell dissent and unrest.

X’s dustup with Brazil has some parallels to the company’s dealings with the Indian government three years ago, back when it was still called Twitter and before Musk purchased it for $44 billion. In 2021, India threatened to arrest employees of Twitter (as well as Meta’s Facebook and WhatsApp), for not complying with the government’s requests to take down posts related to farmers’ protests that rocked the country.

Musk’s decision to reverse course in Brazil after publicly criticizing de Moraes isn’t surprising, said Matteo Ceurvels, research firm Emarketer’s analyst for Latin America and Spain.

“The move was pragmatic, likely driven by the economic consequences of losing access to millions of users in its third-largest market worldwide, along with the millions of dollars in associated advertising revenue,” Ceurvels said.

“Although X may not be a top priority for most advertisers in Brazil, the platform needs them more than they need it,” he said.

___

Ortutay reported from San Francisco