Source: AFP
A block on Elon Musk’s X social network in Brazil took effect early Saturday after a Supreme Court judge ordered its suspension, according to AFP.
Brazil’s Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes on Friday ordered the platform suspended after a months-long standoff with the tech billionaire over misinformation in South America’s largest country.
Moraes issued the ruling after Musk failed to comply with an order to appoint a new legal representative for the company.
Early Saturday access to X, formerly known as Twitter, was no longer possible for some users in the South American country who were shown a message asking them to reload the browser without being able to successfully log in.
Musk, who also owns Tesla and SpaceX, reacted angrily to the judge’s order, calling Moraes an “evil dictator playing judge” and accusing him of “trying to destroy democracy in Brazil.”
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“Freedom of speech is the foundation of democracy and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes,” the billionaire, who has increasingly aligned himself with right-wing politics, wrote on X.
The two have been locked in an ongoing, high-profile feud for months as Moraes leads a fight against disinformation in Brazil.
Musk previously declared himself an “absolutist of free speech,” but since taking over the platform formerly known as Twitter in 2022, he has been accused of turning it into a mouthpiece for right-wing conspiracy theories.
He is a staunch supporter of former US President Donald Trump’s bid to regain the White House.
Moraes ordered the “immediate, complete and total suspension of X” in the country, telling the national communications agency to take “all necessary measures” to implement the order within 24 hours.
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It threatened a fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) to anyone who used “technological subversions” to bypass the block, such as a VPN.
The judge also ordered Google, Apple and Internet providers to “introduce technological barriers capable of preventing the use of the X application” and access to the website — though he later withdrew that order.
The social networking platform has more than 22 million users in Brazil.
Musk shut down X’s business operations in Brazil earlier this month, alleging that Moraes had threatened the company’s previous legal representative with arrest to force him to comply with “censorship orders.”
On Wednesday, Moraes told Musk he had 24 hours to find a new spokesperson or face suspension.
Shortly after the deadline, X said in a statement that he expected Moraes to shut it down “simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents.”
“Who does Musk think he is?”
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The standoff with Musk began when Moraes ordered the suspension of several X accounts belonging to supporters of former far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who sought to discredit the electoral system in the 2022 election, which he lost.
Brazilian authorities are investigating whether Bolsonaro planned a coup attempt to prevent current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office in January 2023.
Internet users blocked by Moraes include the likes of far-right former lawmaker Daniel Silveira, who was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2022 on charges of leading a movement to overthrow the Supreme Court.
In April, Moraes ordered an investigation into Musk, accusing him of reactivating some of the banned accounts.
Source: AFP
On Thursday, Musk’s satellite internet provider, Starlink, said it had received an order from Moraes that froze his accounts and prevented it from conducting financial transactions in Brazil.
Starlink claimed the order “is based on an untenable determination that Starlink should be liable for the fines imposed — unconstitutionally — against X.”
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The company told X that it intended to “address the matter legally.”
Musk is also the subject of a separate judicial investigation into an alleged scheme where public money was used to orchestrate disinformation campaigns in favor of Bolsonaro and his cronies.
“Any citizen from anywhere in the world who has investments in Brazil is subject to the Brazilian constitution and laws,” Lula told a local radio station on Friday.
“Who does he (Musk) think he is?
Source: AFP
