Elon Musk in 2020. Image: NASA/Bill Ingalls/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Musk has been vocal for weeks about not giving in to Brazil’s Supreme Court, but a new court filing suggests X is complying with all previous demands.
X is reportedly caving in to the recent demands of Brazil’s Supreme Court, despite weeks of protest from the company and its owner Elon Musk.
The social media site was recently banned in the country after failing to name a legal representative in the country or take down certain X accounts.
But in a court filing seen by The New York Times, X says it is complying with the Supreme Court’s demands so the national ban can be reversed. These demands include paying fines, naming a new legal representative and blocking certain accounts accused of spreading disinformation in the country.
The decision marks a strange and sudden reversal for Musk, who dug his heels in at the initial requests. Musk previously called the demands of Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes illegal and frequently referred to him as a “dictator” and a “criminal”.
X’s global government affairs account previously said the demands of Moraes were “incompatible with democratic government” and that the account takedown requests were simply his attempts to “censor his political opponents”.
Neither X nor Musk have shared details about the company’s decision to comply with Brazil’s demands – an usual silence for the billionaire, who is extremely vocal on his social media platform.
The last post from the X global government affairs account is from last week, when the site “inadvertently” returned to Brazil after it changed network providers. An advisor to Abrint – Brazil’s trade association for internet and telecoms service providers – claimed X may had made the change on purpose.
The question of why X capitulated to Brazil’s demands may be in the size of its market – more than 21m people in the country use the platform. Meanwhile, X may be vocal about not complying with government takedown requests, but reports suggest the reality is different.
A report from AlJazeera last year claimed X had at least partially complied with almost all takedown requests from governments since Musk took over the platform, with roughly half of those requests stemming from Turkey,
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Elon Musk in 2020. Image: NASA/Bill Ingalls via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
