Why did Brazil’s Supreme Court ban X?

In Focus by The Hindu

X (formerly known as Twitter) has gone offline in Brazil. The country’s Supreme Court issued an order to block X in Brazil after Elon Musk refused to appoint a legal representative for the company in the country. This defiance came on the heels of repeated flouting of the court’s orders to block certain far-right accounts that were allegedly spreading disinformation.

X has more than 22 million users in Brazil, who suddenly find themselves cut off from their accounts. The judge who ordered the ban, Alexandre de Moraes, has also said in his order that those who use VPN to access X will face a fine of 50,000 reais, or $8,850 per day. Musk, meanwhile, has gone all out vilifying Judge Moraes, calling him an “evil dictator” ‘Darth Vader’ and Voldemort’.

The ban on X has raised several questions about the global governance of social media. For instance, does this ban amount to some form of censorship, as Musk is claiming? Is it okay for an American tech platform owner to publicly back a particular political faction in another country, as Musk has been doing? Can an MNC expect to operate in a given country without complying with local laws? What lessons does the Brazilian court’s action hold for other nations in the Global South, such as India?

Guest: Jyoti Panday, who is with the Internet Governance Project at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu.

Edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian.