Elon Musk says he is a free speech absolutist and will not be blackmailed with money or forced to submit to anyone’s whims. If you look at specific actions, you’ll see that Twitter is far more amenable to government takedown requests. The counter argument is that he stood on principle and refused to appoint a legal representative to Brazil and pay a fine of up to $5 million, even if it meant losing up to 20 million potential customers. That might be the case. Well, Twitter is now in a position to regain that audience, but we’ll never know what happened. The BBC reports:
Brazil’s Supreme Court announced it would lift the ban on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
In his ruling, Judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered the “immediate reinstatement” of X’s activities in the country after he paid a hefty fine and blocked accounts accused of spreading false information. said that it was allowed.
In a statement, the site said it had agreed to pay a total fine of 28 million reais ($5.1 million, £3.8 million) and appoint a local representative as required by Brazilian law.
Was all that grandstanding just to yield to the judge’s (very reasonable) demands? He should have skipped the foreplay and done what the court required last month! Since then, millions of Brazilians have migrated to other social media platforms such as Threads and Bluesky. Will they abandon the internet community they’ve built over the past month and return to the bird app? Time will tell.
For those returning, welcome to Twitter, Brazil! There’s a lot to catch up on!
Brazil lifts ban on Musk’s X after paying $5 million fine [BBC]
Previously: Elon Musk would rather shut down Twitter than take minimal responsibility
Chris Williams became Above the Law’s social media manager and associate editor in June 2021. Prior to joining our staff, I was a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group “Law School Memes for Edgey T14s.” He persevered in Missouri and graduated from Washington University St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatwright who cannot swim, but has published books on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and loves cycling, which sometimes annoys his co-workers. You can contact him by email. [email protected] And in a tweet Morimori.