An ongoing feud between a Brazilian Supreme Court judge and Elon Musk has left social media platform X on the brink of being shut down in the country, while satellite internet provider Starlink pushed to unblock its financial accounts in Brazil.
X was still operating normally in Brazil on Friday, but the platform said late Thursday that it expected Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes to order a shutdown “soon” after a court-imposed deadline expired for the company to identify a legal representative in Brazil.
Earlier this year, a judge ordered X to block several accounts implicated in investigations into so-called digital militias accused of spreading distorted news and hate.
Musk, denouncing the order as censorship, responded by closing the platform’s offices in Brazil. X, formerly known as Twitter, said at the time that its services would still be available in Brazil.
Amid the underlying dispute over X, Brazil’s Supreme Court also blocked the local bank accounts of satellite internet firm Starlink, which is 40% owned by Musk, prompting the company on Friday to ask the court to suspend that ruling .
In the appeal, seen by Reuters, Starlink claims there was “no interference” with X and that it failed to comply with any legal orders directed at it. The account freeze was issued in part because of a dispute over unpaid fines that X was ordered to pay by Brazil’s highest court.
Starlink’s appeal documents show that Moraes had requested the freezing of funds from the broadband satellite company’s bank accounts and financial assets, properties, ships and aircraft in Brazil to cover fines owed to X.
Brazil’s top court was able to freeze about 2 million reais ($354,226.81) from X’s accounts in Brazil so far, according to Starlink’s appeal. Local newspaper Folha has reported that the fines are at least 20 million reais ($3.6 million), but Reuters was unable to confirm the amount.
Musk told X that Starlink – which provides internet connectivity to remote countries – will continue to serve Brazilians, including the country’s military, for free “until this issue is resolved”.
The country’s military had said in a document sent to the lower house of Congress in June that a disruption of Starlink services would adversely affect its operations and could harm the strategic employment of specialist troops.
It calls for responsibility
Asked about Musk’s feud with Justice Moraes, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told a local radio station on Friday that “any citizen from any part of the world who has an investment in Brazil is subject to the Brazilian constitution and Brazilian laws. “
“Just because a guy has a lot of money doesn’t mean he can’t respect (the law),” the leftist leader added. Musk had on Thursday criticized Lula as Moraes’ “lapdog” in a post on X in which the billionaire also called Moraes a “dictator”.
The judge, at a separate event on Friday, reiterated his view that social media needs regulation to contain “hate speech”. He did not give any details on when he might issue an order to block X.
“Those who violate democracy, who violate basic human rights, either personally or through social media, must be held accountable,” Moraes said.
According to Brazilian laws governing the Internet, social media platforms are required to have a local representative.
To shut down X’s operations in Brazil, Moraes would have to order telecommunications companies to stop carrying X’s traffic. Users, however, would still be able to bypass the block by using virtual private networks, or VPNs.
The US Embassy in Brasilia said in a statement that it is “closely monitoring” the situation between Brazil’s Supreme Court and X, adding that the United States values ”freedom of speech as a cornerstone of a healthy democracy” and that ” does not comment on local court decisions or legal disputes”.
Musk, in an X post on Friday, interpreted the US Embassy’s comments as a show of support for him, saying the comments were “appreciated”.
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