Supreme Court allows Mr. X to resume access in Brazil after high-profile clash between Supreme Court Justice and Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s X Corp has been allowed to once again offer its services to Brazil, one of the world’s largest user bases.
According to Reuters, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes has granted permission for Company X (formerly Twitter) to immediately resume operations in the country.
Elon Musk has clashed publicly with De Moraes, with Musk repeatedly accusing him of “unlawful orders.”
Image credit: Elon Musk/Twitter
mask defiance
This issue began in April 2024 when Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes launched an investigation into X on suspicion of obstruction of justice, and Elon Musk said he would reinstate X’s account that the judge had ordered blocked. It started with something.
Judge Moraes had ordered X to block certain accounts he accused of spreading disinformation during an investigation into “digital militias” during the era of President Jair Bolsonaro.
But Musk refused, decried the order as censorship and vowed not to comply with it. Mr. Musk also refused to appoint a new legal representative for the company in Brazil, as required by law, and refused to settle outstanding daily fines within 24 hours.
Mr. Musk also called on Judge Alexandre de Moraes to “resign or be impeached.”
In August, X closed its offices in Brazil “with immediate effect” and fired its staff in the country following a “censorship order” issued by a judge.
But Brazil’s Supreme Court and Justice Alexandre de Moraes did not back down in the face of Mr. Musk’s fierce public attacks, and in early September, Brazil (one of its largest and most coveted markets) access to X was blocked.
Judge de Moraes subsequently lifted the freeze placed on Brazilian bank accounts belonging to SpaceX subsidiary Starlink and was sent to.
But X also angered the Supreme Court in September when access to it was “temporarily” restored in Brazil through media distribution platform Cloudflare’s servers.
Company X quickly stated that this was an “inadvertent temporary service restoration for users in Brazil” and that it expected the platform to “become inaccessible again shortly.”
However, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes accused X of a “deliberate, illegal and persistent” attempt to circumvent the court-ordered block.
mask compliance
Judge Alexandre de Moraes last week added a new fine to be paid before X can return to the country. The judge said X must pay a new fine of 10 million reais ($1.84 million, £1.4 million) for what it called an act to circumvent a block against X in Brazil.
According to Reuters, Brazil’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the resumption of services in the country after Company X began complying with the court’s ruling and appointed lawyer Rachel de Oliveira Conceição as its legal representative in the country. effective immediately).
Mr. de Moraes reported that in his decision, he stated that Company X has met all the necessary requirements to resume operations in the country.
He ruled that Brazilian telecommunications regulator Anatel must try to get Company X back online within 24 hours.
Brazil’s communications minister said on Tuesday that X’s decision to pay the fine and comply with the court order was a “victory for the country.”
Reuters quoted Juscelino Filho as saying: “We showed the world that our laws should be respected here, no matter who you are.”
proud to be back
through it Global Affairs AccountX said he is proud to return to Brazil and will “continue to uphold freedom of speech within the limits of the law wherever we operate.”
X is proud to return to Brazil. Throughout this process, providing tens of millions of Brazilians with access to an essential platform was paramount. We will continue to protect free speech within the limits of the law wherever we do business.
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oh…
— Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) October 8, 2024
Brazil is X’s sixth-largest market in the world, with about 21.5 million users as of April, according to Statista.