Elon Musk's X under pressure amid Brazil ban | BBC News

we start with Elon Musk and the social media platform he controls X which is forly was known as Twitter it's facing the loss of one of its largest markets over a r about hate and speech and disinformation Brazil's Telecom regulator has now supended access to X for the country's 200 plus million people it did that over the weekend after a ruling by a senior judge and there will be a vote later today by a panel of Brazil's Supreme Court on whether to uphold that ruling it's the most serious crisis yet for the platform although critics

have been accusing X of becoming a Haven for extremist and hateful content and also false information for a while now David woodell has this report when Elon Musk took control of Twitter two years ago in a $44 billion deal rebranding it X he signaled there would be far fewer restrictions on what people could post Mr musk calls himself a free speech absolutist as he told the BBC James Clayton last year free speech is meaningless unless you allow people uh you don't like to say things you don't like otherwise it's irrelevant um and if at the

point in which you lose a free speech uh it doesn't come back since then the platform and its owner have faced constant controversy individuals banned from Twitter including controversial influencer Andrew Tate and UK far-right activist Tommy Robinson were reinstated by X during violent far-right protests this summer in the UK Mr musk found himself in a ride with prime minister sukir starmer after posting that Civil War is inevitable and accusing the government of two-tier policing Mr musk's latest row threatens X's position in one of its biggest markets over the weekend Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandra de

mares ordered the platform to be shut down across the country it comes after a monthlong feud over alleged misinformation and hate speech on the platform in which Mr musk called the judge an evil dictator the arrest in France last month of pav durov CEO of messaging app telegram has raised the stakes in the debate France has rejected claims that CEO can't be held responsible for illegal content shared on the platform but Elon Musk hinted on X over the weekend that it's probably wise for me to limit movements to countries where free speech is constitutionally protected

David Wardell BBC News so almost two years of controversy have not been good for the commercial fortunes of exits faced a widespread advertising boyot by the likes of Apple Disney and Union L which has hit its earnings pretty hard investment managers Fidelity they've written down their stake in the company by 72% that's according to recent figures seen by the Washington Post now if their valuation is accurate X will have gone from being worth $44 billion at the time of Elon musk's takeover of Twitter to being now worth just $1 13 billion which is quite a

write down indeed what we can hear now from technology journalist Chris Stocker Walker who joins us now Chris um firstly I mean Brazil is a is a major Market there are a lot of people there 220 plus million is this significant explain to us how significant it could be yeah pretty significant because uh of the scale of the country and therefore the scale of the user base we don't have hugely reliable data we have third party estimates anywhere between around about 20 million and 40 million Brazilians are believed to use x every single month around

about a third about 30% or so have it installed on their phones um which means that this is a relatively big market and has been not just for Rex but for lots of other Tech platforms which is why they try and keep them on side and if you're a tech exact right now there might be some concern that this sort of thing is catching that other countries and other markets might follow suit yeah we we had not only this issue with Elon Musk and X in Brazil but we've had pav durov and and France and

the debates around telegram the encrypted messaging app there we've also had Elon Musk uh getting into spats with many other people and I think that this is uh part for the course for him most recently we've had him getting engaged with European Regulators including tierry Breton the commissioner in charge of social media there earlier he also had a similar dispute over free speech in his view uh over images and video that was shared of an attack on a church in Australia with the E safety commissioner there so this is becoming I think increasingly common and

Elon Musk is a lightning rod I suppose for that sort of criticism but is X a little bit of a basket case here because we heard there about the boycotting of advertising about the valuation right down is the business model just not working yeah I think it is really struggling at the minute we know that Elon Musk was very very keen to buy this we know that he was willing to spend an awful lot of money and we know that he has pretty much tank the business behind it so one of the things that musk

does often revert to is this concept that controversy creates cash now I don't think that he's going to end up getting Brazil back online anytime soon unless he exceeds to those requests which are relatively simple but he sees this as a red line so this is going to impact the business I think even further okay Chris thank you as always for joining us and we'll hear about the ruling a bit later on today