Brazilians split over X suspension, poll shows

SAO PAULO: Brazilians are split over Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes’ order for social media giant X to be taken down in the country, a poll shows.

A slight majority of those surveyed say the judge is right in his feud with billionaire X owner Elon Musk, but user-targeted fines on VPNs and the freezing of Starlink accounts in the country were seen as “abusive”.

Pollster AtlasIntel said that 50.9 percent of the respondents surveyed on Sept. 3-4 disagreed with Moraes’ decision to suspend the platform in the country, while 48.1 percent agreed and 0.9 percent did not know how to answer.

Asked about who was right on the public dispute between Moraes and Musk, however, 49.7 percent sided with the judge while 43.9 percent backed the billionaire. 5.4 percent chose not to take sides.

Moraes and Musk have been feuding for months over legal orders for X to take down some content, and matters escalated after X failed to name a local legal representative as required by Brazilian law and ignored a deadline for compliance with court orders.

According to AtlasIntel, 48.9 percent of respondents said X should have complied with court orders to take down some content and ban some users implicated in probes of so-called “digital militias” accused of spreading distorted news and hate.

That was considerably higher than the 37.6 percent that sided with Musk in saying that the social media platform should not have respected Moares’ rulings. 9.9 percent said X should have taken down some specific content, but not banned any users.