X Shuts Down Operations in Brazil Amid Controversy Over Censorship Orders

X Shuts Down Operations in Brazil Amid Controversy Over Censorship Orders

X Shuts Down Operations in Brazil: Elon Musk, the owner of Social media platform ‘X’ announced on Saturday that it will stop all its operations in Brazil because of what it called "censorship orders" from Judge Alexandre de Moraes in Brazil.

In a statement, the company said, “To protect the safety of our staff, we have made the decision to close our operation in Brazil, effective immediately.”

On Sunday, in a tweet shared by Elon Musk on his social media X handle, he wrote, “The decision to close the ???? office in Brazil was difficult, but, if we had agreed to @alexandre ’s (illegal) secret censorship and private information handover demands, there was no way we could explain our actions without being ashamed.”

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The social media ‘X’ which is owned by billionaire Elon Musk says that Moraes secretly told one of its lawyers in Brazil that the company doesn’t follow the orders to remove some of the content from its platform.

The company released a paper signed by Moraes said that the X representative Rachel Nova Conceicao in a South American country would be charged a fine of 20,000 reais ($3,653) daily and would be put under arrest decree if the company didn’t follow the orders.

The X still will be in service to people in Brazil, Elon Musk's platform said on Saturday.

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Earlier, Alexandre Moraes told X to remove some accounts while he investigates the "digital militias" that were accused of spreading false news and racist messages when Jair Bolsonaro was the president.

Judge Alexandre Moraes investigated the billionaire after Musk added that he would reactivate X accounts that the judge had banned. Elon Musk also noted that Alexandre Moraes' decisions about X were "unconstitutional."

After Musk's challenges, X officials noted that it would reverse its decision and told Brazil's Supreme Court that the company would follow their orders.

In April, lawyers of the ‘X’ said to the Brazilian supreme court that "operational faults" had let users who were supposed to be blocked stay active after the Moraes remarks that why the company hasn’t fully complied with his orders.

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