The attorney general, who works with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, came under fire after sending a message of thanks to Brazil just days after the country began blocking social media platforms. From Elon Musk.
Keith Ellison's “obrigado Brasil!” statement, posted in Portuguese on Monday, has also drawn widespread criticism from X's conservative base.
“The Democrats who once defended the First Amendment are now trying to destroy it,” Musk wrote in a message sharing Ellison's post.
Brazil has launched a ban According to the Associated Press, the company blocked access to the company on Saturday after it missed a deadline to appoint a legal representative in Brazil, and anyone trying to circumvent the blockage by using a VPN could be fined around $9,000 per day.
“Elon Musk has demonstrated total disregard for Brazilian sovereignty, and in particular for its judicial system, positioning himself as a truly supranational entity, above and beyond the reach of national laws,” the news agency quoted Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes as saying in a ruling on Friday.
Moraes reportedly added in his ruling that Brazilian law requires internet service companies to have a representative in the country to be able to notify them of local court decisions that require them to take action, such as removing illegal content or election misinformation.
According to the Associated Press, Mr. X has not had an agent in Brazil since early August.
The social media platform said in a statement that the judge shut down X “simply because he refused to comply with an unlawful order to censor his political opponents.”
“When we tried to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened to jail our Brazilian lawyer. Even after she resigned, the judge froze all of her bank accounts,” the company said. “Unlike other social media and tech platforms, we will not secretly comply with unlawful orders.”
“To our users in Brazil and around the world, X remains committed to defending freedom of speech,” the company added.
