Brazil’s highest court upheld Monday a controversial justice’s decision to block X from operating nationwide after the platform declined to appoint a legal representative and defied orders to censor high-profile users.
A Brazilian supreme-court panel unanimously voted to sustain supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes’s unilateral suspension of X on Friday until the social-media platform cooperates with de Moraes’s order for X to name a legal representative, the Associated Press reported.
Five of the court’s eleven justices sit on the panel, including de Moraes, and the jurists sided with de Moraes’s escalation against X after the two sides feuded for months over the judge’s demands for X to censor certain forms of speech on the platform.
Billionaire X owner Elon Musk, a self-described supporter of free speech, has led the charge against de Moraes’s demands for X to censor political opponents and has accused the justice of violating Brazilian law by instructing the platform to take down accounts and posts.
“De Moraes deserves prison for his crimes,” Musk said on X Monday, one of many recent posts accusing de Moraes of being a criminal and a dictator.
In anticipation of de Moraes’s ruling, the X global government affairs team said de Moraes threatened the company’s previous legal representative with jail time and froze her bank accounts. X created an account over the weekend dedicated to shining light on the justice’s orders and backing up Musk’s accusations that de Moraes is illegally censoring his political opponents.
Supporters of de Moraes often point to the central role he played in overseeing Brazil’s transfer of power from right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro to left-wing president Lula da Silva. A mob of Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed government buildings in January 2023 after Bolsonaro and his supporters falsely claimed the 2022 election was stolen.
“Elon Musk showed his total disrespect for Brazilian sovereignty and, in particular, for the judiciary, setting himself up as a true supranational entity and immune to the laws of each country,” de Moraes said in his decision.
Under the terms of de Moraes’s order, Brazilians who try to access X with a virtual private network (VPN) will be fined the equivalent of $8,900, but it is unclear how Brazil will enforce the measure.
The supreme court panel held up the VPN fine over the opposition from one justice who opposed it unless the individuals were using X for suspected criminal activity. An estimated 40 million Brazilians use X, making it an important user base for the platform.
“This is a sad day for X users around the world, especially those in Brazil, who are being denied access to our platform,” X CEO Linda Yaccarino said Friday. “I hope for a day when the Brazilian government will live up to the Constitution that the Brazilian people ratified. But until there is change in Brazil, X will be shut down.”
Last week, de Moraes suspended the bank accounts of Musk’s internet provider, Starlink, over X’s failure to pay roughly $3 million of fines de Moraes has imposed for the platform’s refusal to comply with his orders. Musk has said Starlink will continue providing internet services to its Brazilian customers free of charge until the dispute is resolved.