Judge in Brazil orders Musk’s X to obey ban or face daily fine

The social network X faces hefty new fine after its appears to defy ban ordered by a judge.

Brazil’s Supreme Court has ordered the social media platform X to remove access to its website after service was restored despite a judge’s ban or face a daily fine of more than $900,000.

The social network, formerly known as Twitter, was banned last month in Latin America’s largest nation as part of a crackdown on disinformation, but access to the phone app returned on Wednesday.

X said the return of its service was “inadvertent and temporary”, but the government accused the company of deliberately violating the suspension order.

Judge Alexandre de Moraes said X would face a daily fine of 5 million reais ($913,000) until it obeys the order to suspend its service.

The social media platform has more than 22 million users in Brazil.

Last month, the judge ordered the suspension of X after Musk refused to remove dozens of right-wing accounts accused of spreading fake news.

The suspension has fuelled a fierce debate on freedom of expression and the limits of social networks, both inside and outside the country.

The judge also froze the assets of X and Musk’s satellite internet operator Starlink, which has been operating in Brazil since 2022, especially in remote communities in the Amazon.

Internet providers explained that X had been accessible again after an automatic update to the phone application.

New software allows the app to use constantly changing identifying IP addresses, which makes it much harder to block. The National Telecommunications Agency, also called Anatel, said Thursday that it had “identified a mechanism which we hope” will block the service again.

De Moraes has also ruled that anyone using “technological subterfuges”, such as virtual private networks (VPNs), to access the blocked site could be fined up to $9,000.

X’s history of problems

This is not the first time X has been banned by a country. China was the first country to ban the platform in June 2009 when it was still called Twitter, two days before the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Venezuela ordered a 10-day block of X last month over a disputed presidential vote in the country after election authorities declared incumbent Nicolas Maduro the winner. Political tensions escalated after the disputed election results.

Why has Brazil banned X?

In January 2023 after supporters of ex-President Jair Bolsonaro, spurred on by false claims of electoral fraud, stormed the National Congress, the Brazilian Supreme Court issued an order for X and other social media platforms to restrict accounts linked to fake news and hate speech.

In April, de Moraes again asked X to block several accounts accused of spreading misinformation about Bolsonaro’s defeat in the 2022 general election. This time, Musk refused and removed X’s legal representative in Brazil in protest.

According to Brazilian law, foreign companies that conduct business in Brazil are required to have a legal representative in the country who acts as a liaison between the firm and local authorities.