Social network Alexandre de Moraes, minister of the Federal Supreme Court, ordered the closure of Elon Musk’s social network for failure to comply with “court orders” imposed on the platform.
Since the early hours of this Saturday, customers of Vivo, Claro and Oi, the main operators in the country, have reported the fall of the social network, which the EFE agency has also not been able to access from there.
The judge’s decision came after tycoon Elon Musk failed to comply with one of his orders: to appoint, within 24 hours, a legal representative for the platform in Brazil. Not only did the company not comply with the order, it issued a statement accusing the court of censorship: “We hope that soon Minister Alexandre de Moraes will order the blocking of X Brasil, simply because we do not comply with his illegal orders to censor his opponents.
In his ruling, the judge yesterday ordered the National Telecommunications Agency – Anatel being the regulatory body – to “immediately adopt all necessary measures” so that the decision against the social network is effective “throughout the national territory,” according to EFE. In addition, the magistrate imposed daily fines of 50,000 reais – almost $9,000 or 8,064 euros – to those who try to access the social network through the virtual private network (VPN), a tool that creates a secure connection between a device and the Internet. and that is used to protect online privacy.
The shutdown of the service did not happen instantly, however, because according to Anatel, there are some 20,000 operators in the country that must prevent customers from accessing all of the social network’s servers.
The confrontation between the billionaire and the Brazilian justice system has been going on for months. De Moraes ordered the social network to eliminate a series of profiles accused of misinforming the population and adopting anti-democratic attitudes and messages. Musk refused to do so and accused the judge of acting without sufficient reasons.
Earlier this month, de Moraes ordered the imprisonment of Rachel Conceição, X’s legal representative in Brazil, “for disobedience to the judicial decision to block profiles with anti-democratic content.” On August 17, X’s office in Brazil closed, and the company found itself in a legal limbo at that point.
The Brazilian magistrate’s conviction is based on the dissemination of false news in which the South African businessman appears, suspected of having committed crimes of obstruction of justice, criminal organization and incitement to crime. De Moraes said he made this decision due to the “non-compliance with court orders” by
The recent rulings by the Brazilian courts have infuriated Musk, who has accused the Brazilian judge of being “an evil dictator disguised as a judge” and attacked the country’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, calling him a “lapdog.”
The suspension of the social network will be active until all court decisions “are complied with” and the million dollar fines imposed on X are paid. Brazil is one of the countries in the world with the most active users of X, around 20 million. This is not the first time that the Brazilian justice system has decided to suspend a social network. This has already happened with YouTube (2007), WhatsApp (2015 and 2016) and Telegram (2023) due to the lack of collaboration in various judicial investigations.
