After months of quarreling between US billionaire Elon Musk and the Brazilian judiciary, social network X agreed to appoint a legal representative in Brazil-a key demand of the Brazilian Supreme Court. The platform has settled the fines for past breaches and promised to block some accounts singled out by the court as purveyors of disinformation and enemies of democracy.
Ongoing Challenges
The matter, however, remains unresolved. The Supreme Court maintained that X did not file sufficient documentation to prove Rachel de Oliveira Conceicao’s appointment as the company’s legal representative. X was given five days to produce the necessary documents to legalize her position.
An unsavory fight between Musk and Brazil’s Supreme Court turned ugly this April when Judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered Musk to remove more than 100 accounts critical of the legitimacy of the 2022 presidential elections, won by leftist challenger Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva over the incumbent right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro.
In mid-August, Musk had struck a defiant tone by closing X’s office in Brazil after Moraes’ ruling left the platform without a legal representative in the country, against local laws. “Moraes has opted to do the opposite of uphold the law or due process and instead wishes to threaten our personnel in Brazil,” X’s Global Government Affairs account said. It said it was immediately closing its operations in Brazil out of concern for its employees’ safety.
Recent Developments
X’s compliance had barely come in after the platform briefly returned to Brazil after its software update. Again, Judge Moraes was to react immediately, referring to such actions as “wilful, illegal and persistent,” and slapped the company with a R$5 million (£680,000) fine. The situation had brought into the light the sensitive stay of working within the regulatory environment of Brazil and social media governance demands.
