An ongoing feud between a Brazilian Supreme Court justice and Elon Musk left social media platform X getting ready to being shut down within the country, while satellite web provider Starlink pushed to unblock its financial accounts in Brazil.
X was still working normally in Brazil on Friday, however the platform said late on Thursday that it expected Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes to order a shutdown “soon,” after a court-imposed deadline expired for the corporate to discover a legal representative in Brazil.
Earlier this yr, the judge ordered X to dam certain accounts implicated in probes of so-called digital militias accused of spreading distorted news and hate.
Musk, denouncing the order as censorship, responded by closing the platform’s offices in Brazil. X, formerly often known as Twitter, said on the time that its services would still be available in Brazil.
Amid the underlying feud over X, Brazil’s Supreme Court also blocked the local bank accounts of the Starlink satellite web firm, which is 40% owned by Musk, leading the corporate on Friday to ask the court to suspend that call.
Within the appeal, seen by Reuters, Starlink claims it doesn’t have “any interference” on X and that it has not didn’t comply with any legal order directed at it. The account block was issued partially as a result of a dispute over unpaid fines that X was ordered to pay by Brazil’s top court.
The Starlink appeal documents show that Moraes had asked for the blocking of resources from the satellite broadband company’s bank accounts and financial assets, properties, vessels and aircraft in Brazil to cover the fines owed by X.
Brazil’s top court was in a position to freeze around 2 million reais ($354,226.81) from X’s accounts in Brazil up to now, in accordance with Starlink’s appeal. Local newspaper Folha has reported the fines total no less than 20 million reais ($3.6 million), but Reuters was unable to verify the quantity.
Musk has said on X that Starlink – which offers web connections to foreign places – would proceed to serve Brazilians, including the country’s military, without spending a dime “until this matter is resolved.”
The country’s army had said in a document sent to the lower house of Congress in June that an interruption of Starlink’s services would negatively affect its operations and will harm the strategic employment of specialised troops.
Calls for accountability
Asked about Musk’s spat with Justice Moraes, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Friday told an area radio station that “each citizen from any a part of the world that has an investment in Brazil is subject to the Brazilian structure and Brazilian laws.”
“Simply because a man has a variety of money doesn’t mean he can disrespect (the law),” the leftist leader added. Musk on Thursday had criticized Lula as Moraes’ “lapdog” in a post on X during which the billionaire also called Moraes a “dictator.”
The judge, at a separate event on Friday, reiterated his view that social media needs regulation to contain “hate speech.” He didn’t provide any details about when he might issue an order blocking X.
“Those that violate democracy, who violate fundamental human rights, whether in person or through social media, should be held accountable,” Moraes said.
Under Brazilian laws governing the web, social media platforms are required to have a locally based representative.
To shut down X’s operations in Brazil, Moraes would should order telecommunication corporations to stop carrying X traffic. Users, nevertheless, would still find a way to dodge the blockage by utilizing virtual private networks, or VPNs.
The US Embassy in Brasilia said in an announcement it’s “closely monitoring” the situation between Brazil’s Supreme Court and X, adding that the USA values “freedom of speech as a cornerstone of a healthy democracy” and that it “doesn’t comment on local court decisions or legal disputes.”
Musk, in an X post on Friday, interpreted the US Embassy’s remarks as an illustration of support for him, saying the comments were “appreciated.”
