Brazil’s Supreme Court on Monday upheld a ban on Elon Musk’s social media platform X – effectively shutting out more than 200 million people from using the popular app.
A majority of three out of five judges on the panel voted in a virtual session to affirm the decision by Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who last Friday ordered X blocked for failing to name a local legal representative as required by law.
X will remain offline until it complies with de Moraes’ orders and pays outstanding fines that as of last week exceeded $3 million, according to the court’s website.
Musk and other free speech advocates have denounced de Moraes’ decision as a draconian act of censorship and a crackdown on freedom of expression — while the judge has insisted that X needs hate speech regulations.
The world’s richest man, who acquired the site formerly known as Twitter in late 2022 with the goal of allowing unfettered speech on the app, slammed de Moraes shortly before Monday’s ruling.
“He violated the constitution of Brazil repeatedly and egregiously, after swearing an oath to protect it,” Musk posted on X.
In another post, Musk said de Moraes’ “actions are against the will of the Brazilian people he is supposed to represent.”
Musk and X did not immediately comment after the ruling.
The dispute over X has its roots in a Moraes order from earlier this year that required the platform to block accounts implicated in probes of alleged spreading of distorted news and hate.
De Moraes’ ruling also imposed a daily fine of nearly $10,000 against anyone who utilizes a virtual private network (VPN) in order to circumvent the ban so as to log on to X.
The proposed fine is particularly onerous given that most Brazilians earn an annual wage that is less than $10,000.
Prior to Monday’s decision, Musk’s satellite internet provider, Starlink, told Brazil’s telecommunications regulator that it will defy the court order to block X until its local accounts are unfrozen.
De Moraes last week ordered all telecom providers in the country to shut down X. The move led to the freezing of Starlink’s bank accounts in Brazil.
The largest South American country, and the seventh most populous nation in the world, is one of X’s biggest markets.
According to the research group Emarketer, some 40 million Brazilians access the site at least once per month.
Tensions between X and de Moraes began two years ago when the judge ordered the suspension of accounts linked to supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro.
It has been alleged that the far-right Bolsonaro sought to undermine the voting system in the 2022 election which brought to power the current leader – President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
In April, de Moraes ordered authorities to investigate X on suspicion that it reactivated some of the banned pro-Bolsonaro accounts.
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