Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes has ordered the nation’s internet service providers to block the social media platform X. The New York Times reports that the order stems from owner Elon Musk’s refusal to appoint a legal representative for his case and comply with Moraes’ order to shut down X accounts he deemed as harmful to the democratic process. The order has been published online by Brazilian news site Poder 360.
The justice issued a deadline to telecom companies and tech giants to remove the X from its app stores and platforms. Apple and Google have five days to take down the social media app from its app stores. Brazil’s telecommunication’s agency Anatel has confirmed it has received the order, and ISPs in the country have just 24 hours to comply with the order.
Justice Moraes’ order doesn’t just block the country’s access to X. It also makes it a crime to use the app through a virtual private network (VPN). Anyone caught accessing X with a VPN could face a daily fine of 50,000 Brazilian Real (around $8,900).
Justice Moraes also froze the Brazillian bank accounts of SpaceX’s Starlink internet service provider on Thursday to further pressure Musk to comply with the court’s order. SpaceX, like X, is a private company majority owned by Musk, and X has $3 million in unpaid fines related to its case in the country. The day before, Justice Moraes issued a threat to ban the X platform entirely across Brazil if the social media company did not appoint a legal representative in the country. The deadline passed without any change to the court’s docket so the judge followed through on his promise.
Starlink expressed its disapproval with the order, vowing to fight the ruling. It even threatened to make its services free to customers to subvert the justice’s order.
The legal fight between Justice Moraes and Musk has been fuming for months. The Supreme Court Judge is also Brazil’s electoral authority and has been monitoring and issuing orders to candidates to steer clear of spreading false information through internet and social media channels.
Brazil’s 2022 presidential election between infamous incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and challenger and former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was reportedly filled with attempts to present voters with false information. Justice Moraes was, until recently, president of the nation’s Superior Electoral Court, which gave him the power to order takedowns of content that violated previous court orders. The judge issued a similar block of the messaging app Telegram for failing to freeze offending accounts, which was lifted after compliance.
Musk characterized Moraes’ directives to take down or freeze similar misinformation accounts from X as “censorship orders.” Earlier this month, Musk expressed his continued refusal to comply with the court by closing X’s Brazilian office in order “to protect the safety of our staff.” X’s Global Governments Affairs team also promised to publish all of “Judge de Moraes’ illegal demands and all related court filings.”