X reportedly reversed course after weeks of the Brazilian Supreme Court refusing to grant conditions that would allow it to resume operations in the country. According to The New York Times, the company’s lawyers said in a court filing on Friday that X had appointed legal representatives in Brazil as required by Judge Alexandre de Moraes, removed accounts the judge identified as a threat to democracy, and paid fines. But the paper also reported that Brazil’s Supreme Court said X had not submitted all required paperwork and ordered it to do so within five days.
According to Reuters, the documents X did not file would prove that the company had formally appointed a legal representative in Brazil, as required by Brazilian law. In its filing on Friday, X named Rachel de Oliveira Conceição as its new legal representative. The company has been working to restore service to Brazilian users after it was blocked at the end of August, and briefly came back online earlier this week using Cloudflare’s DNS. But the company said this was “inadvertent and temporary.” “We expect our platform will soon be inaccessible again in Brazil, but we continue to work with the Brazilian government to restore it as quickly as possible for the people of Brazil,” an X spokesperson said in a statement at the time.
Brazil has threatened to fine X and Starlink roughly $1 million per day if they do not comply with the ban in the country. Judge Moraes also said Brazilian users who use a VPN to access X could be fined roughly $8,900. The company’s latest move is a step toward resolving the issue and could potentially bring X back to Brazil legally.
