Brazil's Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Elon Musk's X
A Brazilian Supreme Court panel has voted to uphold the decision of one of its judges to block Elon Musk's social media platform X nationwide.
X has been blocked in Brazil since early on the morning of August 31, after Musk refused to name a legal representative to the country, missing a deadline imposed by the Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes.
The ban was the latest development in a feud between Musk and de Moraes, which began in April when the judge ordered the suspension of several far-right accounts for spreading misinformation.
Musk and his supporters claim de Moraes wants to censor political speech in Brazil.
But de Moraes' peers have repeatedly endorsed his rulings — as they did by upholding his latest decision on September 2.
X will now stay suspended until it complies with de Moraes' orders and pays outstanding fines that now exceed $3 million.
The platform has clashed with de Moraes over its reluctance to block users, and has alleged that de Moraes wants an in-country legal representative so that Brazilian authorities can pressure the company by having someone to arrest.
De Moraes also set a daily fine of $8,900 for people or companies using virtual private networks, or VPNs, to access X. Some legal experts questioned the grounds for that decision and how it would be enforced.
But the majority of the panel upheld the VPN fine — with just one judge opposing.
Brazil is one of the biggest markets for X, with tens of millions of users. After the ban was enforced, many X users in Brazil said they felt disconnected from the world and began turning to alternative platforms, like Bluesky and Threads.
However, Musk's satellite internet provider Starlink, which says it has over 250,000 clients in Brazil, is refusing to enforce the ban of X, setting up another clash with de Moraes.
De Moraes has already frozen the Brazilian financial assets of Starlink as a means to force it to cover X's fines, reasoning that the two companies are part of the same economic group.
