Brazil: Supreme Court Judge Bans X; Internet Service Providers, Google And Apple App Stores Get Five Days To Comply With Order

The Supreme Court of Brazil has banned X, outlawing the Elon Musk -owned microblogging platform.

The court order is the latest flashpoint in the long-running feud between the two parties over the platform’s free speech policy.

In a ruling delivered on Friday, the Brazilian Supreme Court gave the country's telecom regulator, Anatel, 24 hours to shut down X. It also ordered Apple and Google to block use of the app and remove it from their app stores within five days.

The court also said that users who attempt to access X with a virtual private network (VPN) will be fined the Brazilian equivalent of $8,900. 

“Elon Musk showed his total disrespect for Brazilian sovereignty and, in particular, for the judiciary, setting himself up as a true supranational entity and immune to the laws of each country,” Judge Alexandre de Moraes said in his order.

In his ruling, Justice de Moraes ordered that X will remain suspended in Brazil until all related court orders were complied with, including the payment of more than $3 million in fines, as well as the designation of a local representative, as required by Brazilian law.

While Musk has argued that Justice de Moraes is trying to enforce unjustified censorship, the judge has maintained that social media needs hate speech regulations.

Musk had earlier described Moraes an “evil dictator” and likened him to Voldemort, a well-known villain of the Harry Potter series, for his orders to censor certain political viewpoints in Brazil.

Brazil is an important market for X, which has struggled with the loss of advertisers since Musk purchased the former Twitter in 2022.

Market research group Emarketer says some 40 million Brazilians, roughly one-fifth of the population, access X at least once per month.

X had posted on its official Global Government Affairs handle on Friday (30 August) that it expected the micro-blogging platform to be shut down by de Moraes, simply because "we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents".

"These enemies include a duly elected Senator and a 16-year-old girl, among others," the company added.

"When we attempted to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts. Our challenges against his manifestly illegal actions were either dismissed or ignored," the social media firm said.

It alleged that Judge de Moraes’ colleagues on the Brazilian Supreme Court are either unwilling or unable to stand up to him.

The company clarified that it was absolutely not insisting that other countries have the same free speech laws as the United States.

"The fundamental issue at stake here is that Judge de Moraes demands we break Brazil’s own laws. We simply won’t do that," it added.