Entrepreneur Elon Musk (left) and Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes (right)
Reuters (left) | Getty Images (R)
Musk’s X reportedly faces huge daily fines in Brazil for allegedly evading a service ban there a statement Thursday from the country’s highest court.
Brazil’s Supreme Court (Supremo Tribuno Federal or STF) imposes fines of 5 million Brazilian reals per day, which is approximately US$920,000. The court said it would continue to impose “joint and several liability” on Starlink, the satellite network service owned and operated by Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX.
Brazil’s chief justice, Alexandre de Moraes, initially ordered the suspension of X’s services in Brazil in late August, and a panel of judges upheld the order in early September. The court found that, under Musk, X violated Brazilian law, which requires social media companies to hire legal representation in the country and remove hate speech and other content deemed harmful to democratic institutions. The court also found that X failed to suspend accounts allegedly involved in doxing federal officials.
X recently moved to a hosted server Yunyaoand appears to use a constantly changing, dynamic Internet Protocol address that enables many users in Brazil to access the site. In its previous setup, the company used static and specific IP addresses in Brazil, which were more likely to be blocked by ISPs on orders from regulators.
Musk, who owns the company formerly known as Twitter, had been lashing out at DeMorais for months and continued to do so after the order. He described De Morais as a villain and compared him to Darth Vader and the Harry Potter character Voldemort. He has also repeatedly called for de Moraes’ impeachment.
Brazil previously withdrew fines imposed on X from X and Starlink’s accounts at financial institutions in the country. The new fines will come into effect on September 19, with the court calculating the total fine based on “days of non-compliance” with the previous order suspending X nationwide.
Although Musk has branded himself a free speech absolutist, X has acquiesced to requests to remove profiles and posts from countries including India, Turkey and Hungary.
Musk and X may also be complying with Brazil’s takedown order. Correio Braziliense, Brazilian publication, reported on wednesday X has begun blocking the account based on a suspension order issued by the country’s Supreme Court.
The apparently banned accounts include those of online influencers who are reportedly under investigation for spreading misinformation and inciting attacks on Brazil’s democratic institutions.
The X indicates there is no intention to restore access to Brazilian users.
“When X shut down in Brazil, our teams no longer had access to our infrastructure serving Latin America,” a company spokesperson told CNBC on Wednesday. “In order to continue to provide the best service to our users, we have changed network providers. This change has resulted in an unexpected temporary restoration of service for users in Brazil. While we anticipate that the platform will be unavailable again in Brazil soon, we will continue to The government’s efforts to work with Brazilian users will soon return to the Brazilian people.
de Moraes has ordered Brazil’s national telecommunications agency Anatel to block Cloudflare and fast and EdgeUno servers, as well as other servers that the court said were “created to circumvent” X’s suspension in Brazil.
Cloudflare did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the company is It is said Cooperate with Brazilian authorities.
Before the suspension, X had an estimated 22 million users in Brazil Data report.
watch: X is a financial “disaster”
