Syed Imran Haider 
On Friday, the top court in Brazil ordered a nationwide suspension of X. This was after Elon Musk’s company vowed to go against earlier court orders related to moderating content.
In addition, the social networking firm had also been ordered to appoint a legal representative in the country.
The Ruling
The top judge of Brazil’s court, Alexandre de Moraes, also imposed daily fines on businesses and people in the country that were accessing X via virtual private networks (VPNs), or other methods.
On Friday, a statement was issued by the court through its government website. It said that it had ordered the complete and immediate suspension of the X social network in the country.
The suspension would remain in effect for as long as the company does not comply with the judicial decisions and does not pay fines.
In addition, the company would also have to avoid a valid legal representative to get the suspension lifted.
Another order was issued hours later in which the court suspended some of the measures it had mentioned in its first order.
Initially, the judge had given companies like Google and Apple 5 days to stop allowing X downloads via their app stores and to remove VPN apps.
The Changes
The deadline in question was eliminated in the second order and their implementation was delayed. This delay offered enough time to X to pay its fines and also hire a legal representative.
Brazil’s Supreme Court had first announced a deadline of 24 hours on Wednesday for X and Musk to appointing a legal representative, or get suspended.
On Thursday evening, the deadline had passed. In a statement, X had said that it had been expecting a showdown with Moraes because they were not complying with his orders.
Under the laws in Brazil, social media firms are required to employ someone for handling government takedown notices.
The Situation
X does not have such a representative in the country. Earlier this month, the company said that to avoid dealing with any arrests due to non-compliance with court orders, it would remove its employees from the country.
Musk’s company is already dealing with problems and its suspension could cause further problems. There are more than 171 million active social media users in Brazil.
In late 2022, Musk had acquired Twitter for $44 billion. A number of changes had been implemented and previously suspended and banned accounts were reinstated.
This caused a number of advertisers to reduce ad spending, or flee entirely. Musk had criticized de Moraes in a series of posts after finances of Starlink had been frozen.
This is the satellite internet service that SpaceX offers in Brazil. Under Musk’s management, Starlink has posted advertisements on X and Musk has also encouraged Brazilians to use the service.
X had been fined by de Moraes for violating Brazilian law and Starlink’s finances were frozen to get those fines.
Critics of the judge consider his actions against X as over the top. This is not the first time that his court has suspended social media services until they comply with regulations.
