Finally, some good news for tech billionaire Elon Musk. On Tuesday, Brazil’s Supreme Court lifted a ban on Elon Musk’s social network X, which was blocked in its biggest Latin American market for over a month amid a row over disinformation.
Judge Alexandre de Moraes said in his ruling that “I authorise the immediate return of the activities” of the social platform after X settled millions of dollars in fines for failing to comply with a series of court orders. He gave Brazil’s communications regulator 24 hours to make the platform accessible again to its users in Brazil.
X paid approximately 28.6 million reals (around $5.17 million) in fines to the Brazilian government, Xinhua news agency reported, citing local media.
Why was X Blocked in Brazil?
Elon Musk had not paid fines issued by a court order and it refused to appoint a legal representative in the country. As a result, X was banned on August 31.
But now, according to reports, the platform has appointed a legal representative and complied with a separate court order to block the accounts of individuals being investigated for inciting a coup in Brazil.
Moraes was upset over a flood of online disinformation related to Brazil’s 2022 election campaign.
Moraes took the extreme decision as X failed to deactivate the accounts of individuals of former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro supporters.
His decision angered Musk, who called Moraes an “evil dictator” and dub him “Voldemort” after the villain from the Harry Potter series.
Musk has not responded to the news yet.
