Brazilian Supreme Court Justices To Review X Ban

A five-member panel of Brazil's Supreme Court is set to vote Monday on a ruling that cut off access to billionaire Elon Musk's social media website X.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who issued the shutdown order Friday, called for the virtual court session so fellow jurists in the high court's first chamber could review his decision, Reuters said Sunday.

The judge has been feuding with Musk for months over de Moraes' investigation into far-right "digital militias" accused of spreading disinformation and hate speech on X, formerly twitter.

Last month, Musk said he was shutting X's office in Brazil rather than comply with an order from de Moraes that Musk described as "secret censorship and private information handover demands."

The move left X without a legal representative in Brazil, one of its biggest markets, and it missed a court-imposed, Thursday deadline to name a new one.

That prompted de Moraes to order the country's telecommunications regulator to suspend access to the site, which it did early Saturday.

Brazil's Supreme Court is composed of 11 justices split between two chambers, not including the chief justice, who can vote to uphold or strike down an individual justice's decision, according to Reuters.

In an interview published Sunday by Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, Chief Justice Louis Roberto Barroso supported de Moraes' ruling.

"A company that refuses to name a legal representative in Brazil cannot operate in Brazilian territory," Barroso said.