The Supreme Federal Court (STF) of Brazil decided to maintain the suspension of the X (formerly Twitter) in the country, decreed last Friday by judge Alexandre de Moraes, after the platform refused to comply with court decisions.
The case was tried in the virtual plenary session of the first panel of the highest Brazilian court and ended with a unanimous result against X, that is, with five votes in favor of suspending the platform in Brazil.
The votes were cast by Alexandre de Moraes himself, the reporting judge of the case and author of the first decision against X in the STF, and by judges Flávio Dino, Cristiano Zanin, Cármen Lúcia and Luiz Fux.
The social network's problems in Brazil intensified when the company's billionaire owner, Elon Musk, began a public campaign against the STF and Alexandre de Moraes himself, claiming that the Brazilian justice system was blocking the freedom of expression of the platform's users by ordering the removal of content from the air.
The tycoon, who has become one of the most active voices of the global far-right, also accused Moraes, without presenting any evidence, of interfering in the Brazilian presidential elections in 2022, won by the current head of state, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Some of the accounts that the Brazilian justice system has asked to be suspended belong to far-right activists and supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is also under investigation for spreading fake news, attacking democratic institutions and planning a coup. Bolsonaro and his allies have a close relationship with Musk.
In mid-August, the South African billionaire announced that he would close X's office in Brazil and fired all of the company's employees in the South American country, claiming that they were being threatened with arrest by Moraes and the STF.
Moraes ordered last Thursday that the social network comply within 24 hours with a series of court decisions regarding the removal of content, pay the fines imposed on it and appoint a representative in the country, a condition required by Brazilian law, which determines that social networks must have a legal representative to operate in Brazil, or access to the platform would be suspended.
BUT: Brazilian court considers blocking X (ex-Twitter) nationwide
None of these orders were carried out and Brazilians' access to X was blocked on Saturday.
On Friday, before the suspension took effect, Musk again accused Moraes of destroying freedom of expression “for political purposes.”
“Freedom of expression is the foundation of democracy and an unelected 'pseudo-judge' in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes,” the tycoon wrote in X.
Today, Moraes, supported by the other four judges of the first panel of the STF, justified the maintenance of the blocking of X by pointing out the “repeated, conscious and intentional non-compliance with court orders and payment of fines” imposed by the court on X and calculated in total at around four million dollars (3,6 million euros).
In addition to the measure decreed against X, Moraes ordered the blocking of bank accounts of Starlink, another of Musk's companies, claiming that the money would be retained to guarantee the payment of fines imposed on the platform.
Starlink, in turn, announced on Sunday that it would not block its customers in Brazil from accessing X until the block on their accounts is lifted.
