Global outages hit X amid Brazilian legal conflict with Elon Musk

X, formerly known as Twitter, is experiencing widespread outages, with over 40,000 reports on Downdetector indicating issues. Approximately 80% of these reports are related to the X mobile app, rather than the desktop web version.

The outages come as a major legal battle unfolds in Brazil. The Brazilian Supreme Court recently ordered X to block fake news and accounts violating laws and undermining democracy. In response, Elon Musk, the owner of X, has closed all company offices in Brazil and refused to comply with the court’s order.

On Thursday, Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes escalated the situation by moving to block the financial accounts of Starlink, Musk’s satellite broadband unit. This decision is a reaction to X’s failure to appoint a legal representative in Brazil, a step required by the court. De Moraes has given Musk 24 hours to comply with this order or face a potential suspension of X in Brazil.

The ongoing dispute centers on whether the court can mandate X to block specific accounts accused of spreading misinformation. Musk has condemned the order as censorship, referring to De Moraes as “an outright criminal of the worst kind” in a recent post.

It is not clear whether the reported outages are linked to Brazil’s preparations to ban X, which closed its Brazilian servers on August 17.