Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes of Brazil imposed a national ban on X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, for failing to appoint a legal representative in Brazil.
Alexandre de Moraes gave an ultimatum on Wednesday to the firm for 24 hours to designate a local representative. On Aug. 17, the company shut down its office in Brazil because of threats against its former legal representative.
According to the news agency Xinhua, the two have been fighting for several months now; the reason was the platform's inability to follow a court order regarding the removal of profiles that de Moraes said were linked to the coup-related content and anti-democratic narratives.
On Friday, Brazil's Supreme Federal Court-STF-fined the platform X a total of 18 million reais for non-compliance.
De Moraes' decision came with the grounds for blocking for repeated and deliberate disregard of court orders and also refusing to settle daily fines. He further accused the platform of trying to bypass Brazil's legal framework and of having set up a "lawless zone" on social media, particularly with regard to the 2024 municipal elections.
De Moraes further declared that X had hosted the activities of radical groups and digital militias, events that have used Nazi, racist, and fascist speech, and speech that incites hatred-particularly during the elections.
The judge has also ordered Anatel, the National Telecommunications Agency, to implement the block within 24 hours. Apple and Google are to remove the X app from their stores within five days.
Apart from that, it also put a daily fine of 50,000 reais, about $10,000, for every attempt at access to X by any person or entity through means such as VPNs.
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