Brazilian Judges Uphold Ban On X Amid Mounting Feud With Musk

(Bloomberg) — The Supreme Court has upheld an order banning Elon Musk’s social network X in Brazil and imposing fines on those who violate the order by using a virtual private network (VPN).

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All five Supreme Court justices voted in favor of shutting down the platform formerly known as Twitter during a virtual trial Monday. X can still appeal the decision after the hearing.

The site has been suspended since an order Friday night by Judge Alexandre de Moraes, the top judge who leads efforts to combat fake news and hate speech in Brazil and faces accusations that he overstepped his bounds by undermining freedom of expression.

Moraes issued the order after Musk ignored several previous decisions, including refusing to name a legal representative for the social network in Latin America’s largest economy.

X went offline over the weekend, affecting its 20 million users in Brazil, one of the countries with the largest online presence in the world.

The suspension will remain in effect, Moraes said, until the company agrees to block profiles with anti-democratic or criminal content, pays the fines imposed to date and appoints a legal representative in the country.

The judges also agreed with Moraes’ ruling, which threatens anyone using a VPN to access X with a daily fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900).

The group did not discuss the order to freeze bank accounts of Musk’s satellite internet provider Starlink, a decision intended to force the company to pay fines imposed on X.

In an appeal filed on Friday, Starlink Brazil Holding LTDA asked the Supreme Court to quash the order, arguing that the Internet business is not part of the case against X. Judge Cristiano Zanin dismissed the appeal and blocked the financial assets.

Brazilian telecommunications watchdog Anatel confirmed on Monday that Starlink had informally notified them that it would not comply with X’s suspension order.

–With help from Andre Loureiro Dias.

(Updates with the votes of all five members of the court panel and with Anatel’s commentary on Starlink, starting in the 2nd paragraph.)