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Journalism of Courage
Brazil’s Supreme Court on Tuesday (October 8) revoked a ban on X (formerly Twitter) after the Elon Musk-owned company agreed to comply with its order. This comes over a month after X services were suspended in Brazil following the apex court’s order on August 30.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes, in his order, authorised the “immediate return” of X to the country after the site paid fines totalling 28 million reals ($5.1m) and agreed to appoint a local representative, as required by Brazilian law. This development follows a months-long feud between Musk and Moraes.
According to the BBC, Anatel, Brazil’s telecoms watchdog, has been instructed to ensure services in the country resume within 24 hours. X has over 20 million users in Brazil, making it the company’s fifth-largest market in the world, after Japan, India, Indonesia and the UK.
The order to ban X in Brazil came after a 24-hour deadline imposed by the Supreme Court on X to name a representative in Brazil passed on August 29. This came weeks after X claimed Justice Alexandre de Moraes had threatened its former legal representative with arrest if the platform did not comply with orders to block some accounts. The representative later resigned.
Earlier this year, Justice Moraes ordered X to block accounts allegedly spreading disinformation. This has been a longstanding concern in Brazil.
However, on April 7, X’s Global Government Affairs complained of being forced to block “certain popular accounts in Brazil” for unknown reasons, and Musk called for the impeachment of Justice Moraes. He has since targeted the judge repeatedly, and called him “the dictator of Brazil”.
On August 30, the GGA account said it “would not comply with his (Justice Moraes’) illegal orders to censor his political opponents…we will publish all of Judge de Moraes’ illegal demands and all related court filings in the interest of transparency”.
Musk has claimed to be a “free speech absolutist”, saying governments instructing the blocking of accounts infringes on people’s free speech rights. But X has complied with some government requests earlier, like in the case of India. Musk was also accused of hypocrisy and silencing his critics when the X accounts of several journalists were suspended in January.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes said on April 7 that Musk was waging a “disinformation campaign”. He referenced Musk’s actions in his order, saying, “The flagrant conduct of obstruction of Brazilian justice, incitement of crime, the public threat of disobedience of court orders and future lack of cooperation from the platform are facts that disrespect the sovereignty of Brazil.”
Justice Moraes oversaw the case against former right-wing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022), over the January 8, 2023 riots in Brasilia. Bolsonaro’s supporters entered and attacked government buildings, a week after socialist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was sworn in after winning the 2022 elections. Musk has been a great supporter of Bolsonaro, who called him a “true legend of freedom”.
Many right-wing Brazilians see de Moraes as a biased judge. In 2022, he ordered a temporary ban on the messaging app Telegram for not complying with an investigation into neo-Nazi chat groups. However, a federal court later lifted the restriction, saying a ban was “not reasonable” for the freedom of communication for other users, DW reported.
The judge’s recent orders have come under wider scrutiny. For instance, he set a daily fine of 50,000 reals ($8,900) for people or companies using virtual private networks or VPNs to access X. According to The New York Times, Justice de Moraes also imposed a fine of $3 million on Musk and froze the assets of Starlink, Musk’s satellite internet service. In defiance, Musk told Brazil’s telecom agency that Starlink would not block access to X.
The ban on X followed the French government’s arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, over crimes like child pornography on the app. Telegram said it was “absurd” to hold Durov responsible, bringing forth the tensions between governments and tech giants over regulations on speech.
President da Silva’s government has supported the judge. Solicitor General Jorge Messias earlier said in a post on X, “We cannot live in a society in which billionaires domiciled abroad have control of social networks and put themselves in a position to violate the rule of law, failing to comply with court orders and threatening our authorities.”
(This is an updated version of an explainer published on September 3)
