Brazilian judge lifts suspension on X after it cedes to court’s demands

The order marked a political defeat for the company’s owner, Elon Musk. The tech billionaire, who has sought the mantle of global free speech crusader since his 2022 acquisition of X, formerly known as Twitter, effectively called the bluff of the Brazilian judiciary system — and lost.

Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversees the country’s inquiry into fake news, had asked the platform to suspend accounts he accused of spreading disinformation that he said could harm the country’s democratic institutions.

Musk refused.

After months of mounting tension, with the pair exchanging insults and allegations, Moraes ultimately suspended the platform in late August.

Within weeks, it was clear that X — which was already losing Brazilian users to its competitors — needed Brazil a lot more than Brazil need X. The platform announced it would cede to the court’s demands.

On Tuesday evening, Moraes appeared to take a victory lap in his judicial order.

The Brazilian “constitution does not permit for liberty of expression to be confused with a liberty to commit aggression,” he wrote. Nor does the “necessary, constitution prohibition of hate speech and the incitation of antidemocratic acts” constitute “censure.”

He framed his dispute with X as an ideological battle over the limits of freedom of expression in a time when countries are still grappling with how to respond to misinformation disseminated on social media. Given what he described as a “new reality in which digital populist extremists can use social media to widely spread hate speech,” there needed to be an “absolute respect” for the rule of law.

In a statement, X applauded the lifting of the suspension.

“X is proud to return to Brazil,” the company wrote in a post. “Giving tens of millions of Brazilians access to our indispensable platform was paramount throughout this entire process. We will continue to defend freedom of speech, within the boundaries of the law, everywhere we operate.”

How Brazilians have viewed the dispute has largely depended on how they identify politically.

Leftists and moderates concerned with the functionality of Brazilian democracy have cheered on the judge’s actions. Many have pointed to the assault on Brazil’s capital last year, when thousands of supporters of former right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro, egged on by fake news, attacked the country’s most important federal buildings.

Bolsonaro supporters have seen it differently. They have accused Moraes of censorship and have accused him of authoritarianism.