Less than two years after taking control of Twitter (now TwitterX), Elon Musk has lost access to the company’s third-largest market, a market that reportedly has more than 40 million users. Despite his online bravado, Musk appears to have painted himself into a corner.
Brazil’s decision to block X is the culmination of an ongoing standoff between Musk and the country’s High Electoral Tribunal (TSE), a special tribunal run by Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes that issues takedown orders for content it deems threatening the integrity of the country’s elections. Musk and X did not comply, instead allowing accounts accused of spreading hate speech and disinformation to remain on the platform, ultimately triggering the ban.
Starlink was also targeted. The court froze assets of another of Musk’s companies, which it said were in the same “economic group” as X, based on their ownership, and said the money could be used to pay fines owed by X. When the freeze went into effect on Monday, Starlink allowed its customers (more than 250,000, according to the company) to use its satellite internet connection to get around X’s ban. After initially resisting, Starlink relented and said it would comply. Experts who spoke to WIRED said Musk seems to be going too far more and more.
“I think Musk realizes that Brazilians aren’t going to take to the streets just because X is suspended,” said Nina Santos, a researcher at Brazil’s National Institute of Science, Technology and Digital Democracy. “Brazilian institutions aren’t going to back down just because Musk is being abusive online.”
In response to a request for comment, an X spokesperson directed WIRED to a post from the platform’s global affairs team, which read, “To our users in Brazil and around the world, X remains committed to defending free speech.”
Meanwhile, Musk continues to antagonize the courts, last week posting (and then deleting) a supposedly AI-generated image of Moraes in prison with the caption: “Alexandre, one day this picture of you in prison will become real,” as well as a caption likening Moraes to Harry Potter villain Voldemort.
“Since April, he has played with Moraes’ image and the legitimacy of the Supreme Court in a problematic escalation,” argued Bruna Santos, a researcher and activist with the Brazilian civil society coalition Coalizão Direitos na Rede. “He was fully aware and knew what the consequences would be.”
WIRED reported how employees struggled to avoid a legal crisis when Musk took over Twitter just days before Brazil’s 2022 presidential runoff election. The company received a consent decree from judicial authorities and was warned that it could be blocked if it did not follow through on its promises to implement election security measures. At the time, Brazil’s then-President Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters allegedly spread false information about the security of the country’s elections to cast doubt on the election results. Musk promised to roll back the company’s existing content moderation policies and promised a kind of “free speech absolutism,” but in reality, he has allowed hate speech, misinformation and disinformation to flow freely on the platform.
