X is closing its doors in Brazil after a Brazilian judge threatened to arrest X’s staff inside the country over a demand for censorship.

The staff have no control over content on X, but the judge nonetheless made the threat of arrest in a secret order, which X exposes below:

Last night, Alexandre de Moraes threatened our legal representative in Brazil with arrest if we do not comply with his censorship orders. He did so in a secret order, which we share here to expose his actions.

Despite our numerous appeals to the Supreme Court not being heard, the Brazilian public not being informed about these orders and our Brazilian staff having no responsibility or control over whether content is blocked on our platform, Moraes has chosen to threaten our staff in Brazil rather than respect the law or due process.

As a result, to protect the safety of our staff, we have made the decision to close our operation in Brazil, effective immediately.

The X service remains available to the people of Brazil.
We are deeply saddened that we have been forced to make this decision. The responsibility lies solely with Alexandre de Moraes.

His actions are incompatible with democratic government. The people of Brazil have a choice to make – democracy, or Alexandre de Moraes.

UPDATE: Elon Musk adds this…