A Brazilian judge named Alexandre de Moraes was going on a power trip, banning content and even people outright from social media. He issued unilateral orders to Twitter/X to perform this state censorship. Twitter/X refused, even though they comply with such orders elsewhere, because the orders were unconstitutional per Brazil’s own constitution. They also went public with the orders despite gag orders from this judge to keep the censorship secret. News outlets like the NYT have labeled de Moraes as a threat to democracy (
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/22/world/americas/brazil-ale...), for his long standing crusade against various activists, journalists, and politicians. The judge the issued orders to arrest Twitter’s lawyers in Brazil or something like that, which seemed very aggresive. So this turned into an international fiasco. The judge eventually ordered Brazil’s ISPs to block Twitter/X. That ban lasted for a little bit and then for some unknown reasons (maybe conversations between Twitter/X and the judge?) Twitter/X access was restored but some partial amount (?) of censorship was performed. Along the way Twitter/X also launched an account detailing the kind of censorship that had been forced on them in secret, along with comparisons against Brazilian law (
https://x.com/AlexandreFiles/status/1829979981130416479).