UX, formerly known as Twitter, said it faces a ban in Brazil after failing to meet a deadline to name a new company attorney.
This social network closed its office in the country at the beginning of the month, saying that its representative was threatened with arrest if he did not follow the instructions which he described as “testing”.
The months-long dispute began when Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes in April ordered the suspension of dozens of X accounts for allegedly spreading misinformation.
X owner Elon Musk has threatened to reopen the accounts, and has described Mr Moraes as a “tyrant” and a “dictator”.
Justice Moraes gave X 24 hours to name a new legal representative or face suspension, with the deadline coming shortly after 20:00 local time (23:00 GMT) on Thursday.
The ban is expected to take about 12 hours to take effect.
But in a post from one of its official accounts shortly after the deadline expiredX made it clear that he did not comply with this order.
“Soon, we expect Judge Alexandre de Moraes to order X banned from Brazil – simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to ban his political opponents,” the post said.
“The main issue here is that Judge de Moraes wants us to break Brazilian laws. We will not do that.”
UX said that he will not comply “secretly with illegal orders”, adding that he will publish the demands of the judge in the coming days “for the sake of transparency”.
Justice Moraes ordered that the X accounts accused of spreading false information – many supporters of former right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro – must be blocked pending an investigation. He said the company’s legal representatives will be charged if any accounts are renewed.
Justice Moraes gained prominence after his decisions to ban social media in the country.
He is also investigating Mr. Bolsonaro and his supporters for their role in the alleged coup d’état on January 8 last year.
