BRASILIA/SAO PAULO (Reuters) - A Brazilian Supreme Court justice on Wednesday ordered billionaire Elon Musk to name a legal representative for his messaging platform X in Brazil within 24 hours or face the site's suspension in the country.
Earlier this month, X announced it would close its operations and fire its staff in Brazil due to what it called "censorship orders" from the judge, Alexandre de Moraes. Its service would remain available for users in Brazil, it said.
X, at the time, claimed Moraes secretly threatened one of the company's legal representatives in Brazil with arrest if it did not comply with legal orders to take down some content from its platform.
In Wednesday's ruling, Moraes says that under the country's law regulating internet issues, companies that do not respect Brazilian legislation or the confidentiality of private information could have their activities temporarily suspended.
The Supreme Court posted a screenshot of Wednesday's court decision on its X account, tagging Musk's and X's Global Government Affairs account.
Hours after the judge's decision, Musk said on X that Moraes "has repeatedly broken the laws he has sworn to uphold".
Earlier this year, Moraes ordered X to block certain accounts implicated in investigations of so-called "digital militias" that have been accused of spreading fake news and hate messages during the government of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro.
After Musk challenged that decision and said he would reactivate accounts on X that the judge had ordered blocked, Moraes opened an inquiry into the billionaire in early April.
X representatives eventually reversed course and told the Supreme Court that the social media giant would obey the legal rulings. In April, however, Moraes asked X to explain why it allegedly had not fully complied with his decisions.
In response, lawyers representing X in Brazil told the Supreme Court that "operational faults" had allowed users who were ordered blocked to stay active on the social media platform.
Musk has called the Moraes' decisions regarding X "unconstitutional".
Topics such as "Twitter will end", "Elon Musk" and "Alexandre de Moraes" were trending on X in Brazil on Thursday, with hundreds of thousands of posts. Public reaction included mostly "memes" making light of the situation.
Among more serious reactions, some X users shared harsh criticism over Moraes' decisions, saying he was harming freedom of speech in Brazil. On the other hand, other users sided with Moraes, saying Musk should not be above Brazilian law.
X, formerly Twitter, is widely used in Brazil and is an important means of communication for politicians especially.