X could be banned in Brazil without a lawyer: Justice de Moraes warns X to stop promoting free speech in the country
Justice de Moraes warned Musk on Wednesday that if he didn’t comply with his order, X could be blocked in Brazil. The company didn’t have a representative in the country for a while. The platform would remain blocked until it complies, according to De Moraes.
“Free speech is the bedrock of democracy and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes,” Musk said in a statement on X following the decision.
Brazil requires major platforms to have a legal representative in the country. It has briefly banned other major social platforms in the past as well, including Telegram and WhatsApp.
Starlink is shut down after de Moraes has left a global banking platform on the lattice: the Starlink case in Brazil
Now, though, the suspension is imminent. Moraes froze the bank accounts of Starlink, the firm that Musk has a piece of, this week. A statement from Starlink was posted to X and it said that the company has many customers in Brazil and that it was trying to hold them responsible for fines levied against them for not turning over documents. The company said it would seek a legal remedy.
Brazil is an important market for X, which has struggled with the loss of advertisers since Musk purchased the former Twitter in 2022. 40 million Brazilians are able to access X at least once a month, according to market research group Emarketer.
“When we attempted to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. She had all of her bank accounts frozen after she resigned. Our challenges against his actions were either ignored or dismissed. Judges on the Supreme Court are unwilling or powerless to stand up to de Moraes.
The platform shut down accounts linked to activists and lawmakers that were accused of consorting with the former President Jair Bolsonaro.
X could be offline for as little as 12 hours after receiving the instructions from de Moraes, given that operators are aware of the widely publicized standoff and their obligation to comply with an order from de Moraes.
In its statement, X framed the court’s decisions as breaking Brazil’s own laws, alleging they are “illegal” and saying it would publish all related court documents.
On Friday morning, X appeared to still be available in Brazil, with users posting from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Now, though, anyone caught using a VPN to access X will be subject to a fine of 50,000 reais, the equivalent of about $8,900, according to the AP.
The Crimes of Pavel Durov, the Corupt CEO of Telegram, and a CP-violating Internet Filtering Measure in Brazil
This week, billionaire Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in France and charged with “complicity” in a raft of serious crimes occurring on the app, which has gained a reputation for being lightly moderated over the years. Musk said the arrest was dangerous times, and sent ripples through the global tech industry.
The AP further reported that internet service providers and app stores in Brazil have five days to comply with the ruling. “Given the number of internet providers in Brazil it might take a while to get the filtering measure fully implemented, depending on how they go about it,” says Isik Mater, director of research at Netblocks, a civil society group that tracks internet censorship.