BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s Supreme Court on Saturday ordered Elon Musk’s social media platform X to provide documents certifying its new legal representative in the country, as the company’s lawyers now say it will comply with court demands to be allowed to resume operations in Brazil.
X was shut down in Brazil in late August after failing to comply with Supreme Court orders to moderate hate speech on the social media platform.
But in the past few days, representatives of Company X have begun publicly announcing their intentions to address the court’s demands, even though the company had previously said it would not meet them.
X’s lawyers said late Friday that the platform had appointed a legal representative in Brazil, responding to a key court demand.
In a ruling issued Saturday, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes gave X five days to provide business records and other documents proving it had officially signed Rachel de Oliveira Conceicao as its legal representative in Brazil.
Brazilian law requires foreign companies to have a legal representative to operate in the country. The representative handles the company’s legal responsibilities locally.
X had a legal representative in Brazil until mid-August, when it decided to close its offices and expel its employees in the country.
The move comes after a months-long dispute between Musk and Moraes over the company’s failure to comply with court orders requiring the platform to take action against the spread of hate speech, which the billionaire has denounced as censorship.
In addition to appointing a legal representative, Brazil’s Supreme Court also ordered X to block certain accounts investigated in a hate speech and misinformation probe, and pay fines of more than $3 million as conditions for lifting the ban.
Initially, X said it would not comply with the “illegal” orders, but its lawyers have now said the platform will pay the fines it owes, and that it has also begun blocking the requested accounts.
It was not immediately clear which accounts X ordered banned, as the investigation is confidential.
Despite the ban, the X app became available to many users in Brazil on Wednesday for a limited period of time after an update to its network bypassed the court-ordered ban.
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