Brazil’s Supreme Court votes to uphold X suspension; Starlink disobeys ruling
A Brazilian Supreme Court panel voted unanimously on Monday to uphold the suspension of social media giant X in the country for defying a court order, blocking access to more than 20 million users.
Justices Flavio Dino, Cristiano Zanin, Carmen Lucia and Luiz Fux sided with Justice Alexandre de Moraes. He last week ruled that X should be suspended in Brazil because it did not name a local legal representative as required by law and a prior court order that set a deadline for compliance.
Three of the justices on the panel said the suspension could be reversed if the platform complied with previous rulings.
X was taken down in Brazil in the early hours of Saturday following Moraes’ decision. Brazil is X’s sixth-biggest market globally with about 21.5 million users as of April, according to Statista.
Moraes and X owner Elon Musk have been locked in a months-long feud after the social media platform challenged orders to block accounts accused by investigators of spreading misinformation and hate.
Musk has argued that Moraes sought to censor users and closed the X office in Brazil in August without appointing a new representative, triggering the suspension.
On Monday, Musk replied, “Exactly,” to a post that described the suspension as an attack on freedom of expression and Brazilians’ rights.
Siding with Moraes, Justice Dino wrote, “It is not possible for a company to operate in the territory of a country and intend to impose its vision on which rules should be valid or applied.”
Dino, Zanin and Fux, nonetheless, indicated that they would be open to reconsidering the decision if X complied with court rulings.
Chief Justice Luis Roberto Barroso, who was not on the review panel, said that removing legal representatives to avoid complying with court decisions “is a behavior that would not be acceptable anywhere in the world.”
As X remained inaccessible for most users in Brazil, local telecom regulator Anatel told Reuters that Starlink, a satellite internet provider also controlled by Musk, was not blocking X.
Starlink was refusing to do so until a freeze on its Brazilian bank accounts was lifted. Moraes last week froze Starlink’s accounts after X did not pay fines imposed for failing to turn over documents.