The Supreme Court of Brazil has ordered the full suspension of Elon Musk’s social media platform X in the country for refusing to name an in-country legal representative.
Brazil’s Justice Alexandre de Moraes
issued the order on Aug. 30, putting millions of users of the platform in Latin
America’s biggest economy on track to be cut off.
De Moraes’s order, which gives
internet service providers and app stores five days to block access to X, also
announced a daily penalty of $8,900 for users in Brazil who use a virtual
private network to evade the ban.
In his decision, de Moraes said X
will remain blocked until it complies with his orders.
“Elon Musk showed his total
disrespect for Brazilian sovereignty and, in particular, for the judiciary,
setting himself up as a true supranational entity and immune to the laws of
each country,” de Moraes wrote.
The suspension was widely anticipated
as X said on Aug. 29 that it expected to be shut down in Brazil
because of what it described as “illegal orders” to censor political opponents.
“Soon, we expect Judge Alexandre de
Moraes will order X to be shut down in Brazil—simply because we would not
comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents,” X said in a
statement, in which the platform claimed that de Moraes had threatened X’s
Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment and later froze all of her
bank accounts.
Musk, who has accused Brazil of
censorship, was included in a criminal inquiry into individuals who allegedly
spread false information about Brazil’s election and justice system.
The Aug. 30 suspension order follows
de Moraes’s Aug. 28 order that gave X just 24 hours to appoint a new legal
representative for X Brazil in response to a petition filed against the
company. In the Aug. 28 order, the judge warned that failure to comply would
result in the platform’s suspension.
A spokesperson for X pointed to the
Aug. 29 statement in response to a request for comment on the suspension order.
Musk has yet to issue a public
statement on the suspension. He did praise
reporter Glenn Greenwald’s analysis of the case, however, in which Greenwald
characterized de Moraes’s demands as part of a broader trend in which regimes
exert online platforms to stifle dissent.
“It is genuinely remarkable the
lengths to which not just Brazil but countries throughout the democratic world
are now willing to go to prevent the internet from being a free exchange of
ideas where human beings can organize freely and privately because they
recognize that is the one threat to establishment power and the status quo
ruling class prerogatives,” Greenwald said
in his analysis.
X said in its Aug. 29 statement that
it plans to publish all of de Moraes’s demands and all related court filings in
the coming days in the interest of transparency.
“Unlike other social media and
technology platforms, we will not comply in secret with illegal orders,” X
wrote. “To our users in Brazil and around the world, X remains committed
to protecting your freedom of speech.”
Brazilian Supreme Court judge
Alexandre de Moraes at the Supreme Court in Brasilia, Brazil, on April 4, 2018.
Victoria Silva/AFP via Getty Images
Authorities in Brazil have previously
ordered telecommunications providers to block access to certain websites or
face daily fines.
While Musk has accused Brazil of
censorship, Brazilian authorities say that X is breaking the country’s internet
laws.
Earlier this year, de Moraes ordered
X to block certain accounts amid investigations into so-called digital militias
accused of spreading fake news and hate messages during the government of
former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
Last year, a federal judge in Brazil
ordered a temporary suspension of messaging app Telegram, citing the social
media platform’s alleged failure to provide all the information that Federal
Police requested on neo-Nazi chat groups.
In 2016, a Brazilian court issued a
nationwide ban on the messaging app WhatsApp, which had more than 100 million
users, for 72 hours.
Owner Meta had failed to provide
encrypted information requested in a police investigation, the fourth block
ordered against WhatsApp in Brazil since February 2015.
At the time, the court ruled that
providers that do not cut off access to WhatsApp be fined the equivalent of
$15,300 a day until they comply.
According to market research group
Emarketer, some 40 million Brazilians, roughly one-fifth of the population,
access X at least once per month.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/brazil-supreme-court-orders-shutdown-of-elon-musks-x-5715946?&utm_source=MB_article_paid&utm_campaign=MB_article_2024-08-31-ca&utm_medium=email&est=hfCiv8j%2FncKmHd79UPq70vB5r0ZZR0m4TGrdSlAIP9XVsWFVi6zEqQW1PK%2Fm%2FzBiIQDM&utm_content=more-top-news-1
Owen Evans and The Associated Press
contributed to this report. This article has been updated to reflect the
response received from X.