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SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil began blocking Elon Musk’s social media platform X early Saturday morning after the company refused to comply with a judge’s order, rendering it largely inaccessible on the web and mobile apps.
X’s failure to appoint legal representatives in Brazil by a deadline set by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes led to the company’s suspension. It marked an escalation in a months-long dispute between Musk and de Moraes over free speech, far-right accounts and disinformation.
In order to block X, Brazil’s telecom regulator Anatel asked internet service providers to suspend users’ access to the social media platform. The major operators began taking this measure as of midnight local time on Saturday.
De Moras warned Musk late Wednesday that X could be blocked in Brazil if he did not comply with an order to appoint a representative, and set a 24-hour deadline. The company has been without a representative in Brazil since the beginning of the month.
“Elon Musk has shown a total lack of respect for Brazilian sovereignty, especially its judiciary, by establishing himself as a true supranational entity, not subject to the laws of every country,” de Moraes wrote in Friday’s decision.
The judge said the platform will continue to suspend its services until it complies with the order and will impose a fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) per day on individuals or companies that use VPNs to access the platform.
In a later ruling, he overturned his initial decision to set a five-day deadline for ISPs themselves (rather than just the telecom regulator) to block access to X, as well as his directive for app stores to remove virtual private networks (VPNs).
The dispute also led to the freezing of the Brazilian bank accounts of Musk’s satellite internet provider Starlink this week.
Brazil is one of Google X’s largest markets, and the company has been struggling with the loss of advertisers since Musk bought Twitter in 2022. About 40 million Brazilians, about a fifth of the country’s population, use Google X at least once a month, according to market researcher Emarketer.
“This is a sad day for X users around the world, but especially for those in Brazil, who are being denied access to our platform. I wish it didn’t have to come to this – it breaks my heart,” X CEO Linda Iaccarino said late Friday, adding that Brazil had failed to live up to its constitutional promise to ban censorship.
X posted a message on its official Global Government Affairs page late Thursday saying it expected X to be shut down by De Morais “simply because we will not comply with his illegal orders to censor our political opponents.”
“When we tried to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Morais threatened to jail our Brazilian legal representative. Even after she resigned, he froze all her bank accounts,” the company wrote.
Unwilling to follow orders to block the user, X came into conflict with Demoras.
Accounts that the platform has previously closed on orders from the Brazilian government include lawmakers from former President Jair Bolsonaro’s right-wing party and activists accused of undermining Brazilian democracy. X’s lawyers filed a document with the Supreme Court in April saying the platform had suspended or blocked 226 users since 2019.
In his ruling on Friday, De Morais cited Musk’s comments as evidence that X’s actions were “clearly intended to continue to encourage posts containing extremism, hate speech, and anti-democratic rhetoric and to seek to remove them from judicial control.”
In April, De Moraes named Musk as a target of an ongoing investigation into spreading false news and launched a separate investigation into the executive for alleged obstruction of justice.
Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist,” has repeatedly claimed the judge’s actions amounted to censorship, a sentiment echoed by Brazil’s political right. He frequently insults de Moraes on his platform, calling him a dictator and a tyrant.
De Morais’s defenders said his action against X was legal, supported by a majority of the full court, and protected democracy at a time when it was threatened. He wrote on Friday that his ruling was based on Brazilian law that requires internet service companies to have a representative office in the country so they can be notified when there are relevant court decisions and take necessary actions – specifically providing for the removal of illegal content posted by users and in anticipation of a deluge of false information during municipal elections in October.
The impending shutdown is not unprecedented in Brazil.
In 2015 and 2016, Brazilian judges repeatedly shut down Meta-owned WhatsApp, the country’s most widely used messaging app, after the company refused to comply with police requests for user data. In 2022, de Moraes threatened to shut down messaging app Telegram nationwide, saying it repeatedly ignored Brazilian authorities’ requests to block profiles and provide information. He ordered Telegram to appoint a local representative; the company ultimately complied and remained online.
X and its predecessor, Twitter, have been banned in several countries, primarily by authoritarian regimes such as Russia, China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Venezuela, and Turkmenistan. Other countries, such as Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt, have also temporarily banned X, usually to quell dissent and unrest. Egypt banned Twitter after the Arab Spring uprisings, in what some called the “Twitter Revolution,” but later restored it.
A search on X on Friday showed hundreds of Brazilian users asking about VPNs that could allow them to appear to be logging in from abroad and continue using the platform. It is unclear how Brazilian authorities would police the practice and impose the fines that de Moras mentioned.
“It’s an unusual move, but its main purpose is to ensure that the court order suspending the platform’s operations is indeed effective,” Philippe Medon, a digital law expert and professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation Law School at the University of Rio de Janeiro, told The Associated Press.
Mariana de Souza Alves Lima, who goes by the nickname MariMoon, showed her 1.4 million followers on X where she planned to go, posting screenshots from rival social network BlueSky.
Starlink said on X late Thursday that Demoras had frozen its finances this week, preventing it from conducting any transactions in the country where it has more than 250,000 customers.
“The order is based on an unfounded ruling that Starlink is responsible for a fine unconstitutionally levied by X,” Starlink said in a statement. “The order was issued in secret and without affording Starlink any due process guaranteed by the Brazilian Constitution. We intend to resolve this matter through legal channels.” The law firm representing Starlink told the Associated Press that the company has filed an appeal but declined to comment further.
Musk responded to the person who shared the freeze report and insulted DeMoras. He wrote: “This guy @Alexandre is a complete criminal, the worst kind, and he’s posing as a judge.”
Musk later posted on X that SpaceX, which operates Starlink, will provide free internet service in Brazil “until the issue is resolved” because “we can’t get paid but don’t want to cut off anyone’s service.”
In his ruling, De Morais said he ordered the freezing of Starlink’s assets because there were not enough funds in X’s accounts to pay the growing fines, arguing that the two companies belong to the same economic group.
Luca Bailey, coordinator of the Center for Technology and Society at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, said that while it was appropriate to order a suspension of X’s operations following the warning and fine, taking action against Starlink seemed “highly questionable.”
“Yes, of course, they have the same boss, Elon Musk, but considering Starlink as part of the same economic group as Twitter (X) is discretionary. There is no connection and no integration between them,” Bailey said.
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