This was determined by Brazilian Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes.
A Supreme Court judge Brazil ordered this Friday that the companies of Elon Musk They will have to pay the state some US$3 millionto pay fines incurred by its social network X, which was suspended at the end of August on Brazilian soil.
Alexandre de Moraes -who was called ”dictator” by Jair Bolsonaro– is the judge of the Supreme Federal Court, “determined the transfer to the coffers of the Union of 18.35 million reais (3.28 million dollars) blocked in accounts” of X and the satellite internet company Starlink, both of Musk. This decision, which was announced during the day, was signed last Wednesday.
The blockade of Elon Musk in Brazil
On August 30, de Moraes decreed the “immediate, complete and comprehensive suspension of the operation of ‘X Brasil Internet LTDA’ in national territory.” The judge opened an investigation against Musk in April, accusing him of reactivating accounts whose suspensions had been ordered by local courts. X admitted that some of those users managed to circumvent the restrictions.
In recent years, in the name of fighting disinformation, Moraes has ordered the blocking of accounts of figures from Brazil’s ultraconservative movements.
It has done so primarily since the attempts by supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro, an admirer of Musk, to discredit the electronic voting system during the presidential elections won by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The judge froze the assets of X and Starlink, which has been operating in Brazil since 2022, especially in remote communities in the Amazon, to ensure payment of fines imposed on X for its judicial non-compliance.
Brazilians can no longer access the X network, which had 22 million users in Latin America’s largest country, and those who try to circumvent the blockade using “technological subterfuges” such as virtual private networks (VPNs), They face fines equivalent to around $9,000.
Source: Ambito
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