Supreme Court clears X to resume access in Brazil, after high profile clash between top judge and Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s X Corp has been cleared to once again provide service to one of its largest user bases in the world, namely Brazil.
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes have given X (formerly Twitter) the green light to resume operations in the country effective immediately, Reuters reported.
Elon Musk had engaged in a very public clash with de Moraes, with Musk repeatedly condemning his “illegal orders”.
Musk defiance
The issue began after Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes began an investigation into X in April 2024 for obstruction of justice, after Elon Musk said he would reactivate accounts on X that the judge had ordered blocked.
Judge Moraes had ordered X to block certain accounts that he has accused of spreading disinformation while he carried out an investigation into “digital militias” during the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro.
Musk however refused, and denounced the orders as censorship and vowed not to comply with them. Musk also refused to appoint a new legal representative of the company in Brazil as required by law, and he refused to settle any outstanding daily fines within 24 hours.
Musk also called for Justice Alexandre de Moraes to “resign or be impeached”.
In August X closed down its office in Brazil “effective immediately” due to “censorship orders” by the judge, and laid off its staff in the country.
But Brazil’s Supreme Court and Justice Alexandre de Moraes did not back down in the face of Musk’s public tirades, and in early September it shut down access to X in Brazil (one of its largest and most coveted markets).
Justice de Moraes then lifted freezes that had been imposed on the Brazilian bank accounts belonging to SpaceX subsidiary Starlink and X, following the transfer of 18.35 million reais ($3.3m, £2.5m) from the accounts into the national treasury.
But X also angered the Supreme Court in September, when access to X was ‘temporarily’ restored in Brazil after it was routed through the servers of media delivery platform Cloudflare.
X quickly said it was an “inadvertent and temporary service restoration to Brazilian users,” and it expected the platform would “be inaccessible again shortly.”
Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes however accused X of a “willful, illegal and persistent” effort to circumvent a court-ordered block.
Musk compliance
Last week Justice Alexandre de Moraes added a new fine for X to pay before it can be reinstated in the country. The judge said X must pay a new fine of 10 million reais ($1.84m, £1.4m) for what he called a move to evade blocks on X in Brazil.
Now according to Reuters, Brazil’s Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared X to resume service (effective immediately) in the country, after the platform started complying with court rulings and appointed lawyer Rachel de Oliveira Conceicao as its legal representative in the country.
In the decision, de Moraes reported said X had met all the necessary requirements to start operating again in the country.
He ruled that Brazil’s telecommunications regulator Anatel must work to allow X to come back online within 24 hours.
Brazil’s communication minister said on Tuesday that X’s decision to pay the fines and comply with court orders was a “victory for the country.”
“We showed the world that here our laws should be respected, by whomever it may be,” Juscelino Filho was quoted by Reuters as stating.
Proud to return
Through its Global Affairs account, X said it was proud to return to Brazil, and said it would “continue to defend freedom of speech, within the boundaries of the law everywhere we operate.”
X is proud to return to Brazil. Giving tens of millions of Brazilians access to our indispensable platform was paramount throughout this entire process. We will continue to defend freedom of speech, within the boundaries of the law, everywhere we operate.
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— Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) October 8, 2024
Brazil is X’s sixth-biggest market globally and as of April had about 21.5 million users, according to Statista.
